Context-aware ranking of intelligent response suggestions

ABSTRACT

Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant to provide a set of predicted responses are provided. An example method includes, at an electronic device having one or more processors, receiving one or more messages and analyzing the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages. The method also includes determining, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided. The method further includes, in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determining, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information. The method further includes providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/503,796, filed on May 9, 2017, entitled “CONTEXT-AWARE RANKING OF INTELLIGENT RESPONSE SUGGESTIONS,” which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

FIELD

This relates generally to intelligent automated assistants and, more specifically, to providing intelligent response suggestions to messages including unstructured natural language information.

BACKGROUND

Intelligent automated assistants (or digital assistants) can provide a beneficial interface between human users and electronic devices. Such assistants can allow users to interact with devices or systems using natural language in spoken and/or text forms. For example, a user can provide a speech input containing a user request to a digital assistant operating on an electronic device. The digital assistant can interpret the user's intent from the speech input and operationalize the user's intent into tasks. The tasks can then be performed by executing one or more services of the electronic device, and a relevant output responsive to the user request can be returned to the user.

Under some circumstances, a user request may not have an appropriate factual or definitive answer. For example, a user may be having a conversation with a friend. During the conversation, the friend may ask the user a general question such as “How are you?” This type of question may not have a factual or definitive answer. An intelligent automated assistant may thus provide a set of predetermined answers (e.g., canned responses) such as “Good/Bad/OK” for the user to choose from. The predetermined answers, however, may not be contextually appropriate, informative, or desirable. For example, the predetermined answers may not be customized for a particular user or based on the content of the conversation.

SUMMARY

Systems and processes for providing intelligent predicted responses are provided.

Example methods are disclosed herein. An example method includes, at an electronic device having one or more processors, receiving one or more messages and analyzing the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages. The method also includes determining, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided. The method further includes, in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determining, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information. The method further includes providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.

Example non-transitory computer-readable media are disclosed herein. An example non-transitory computer-readable storage medium stores one or more programs. The one or more programs comprise instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to receive one or more messages and analyze the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages. The one or more programs also include instructions that cause the electronic device to determine, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided. The one or more programs further include instructions that cause the electronic device to, in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determine, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information. The one or more programs further include instructions that cause the electronic device to provide the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.

Example electronic devices are disclosed herein. An example electronic device comprises one or more processors; a memory; and one or more programs, where the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for receiving one or more messages and analyzing the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages. The one or more programs also include instructions for determining, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided. The one or more programs further includes instructions for, in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determining, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information. The one or more programs further include instructions for providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.

An example electronic device comprises means for receiving one or more messages and analyzing the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages. The electronic device also includes means for determining, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided. The electronic device further includes means for, in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determining, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information. The electronic device further includes means for providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.

Techniques for providing a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses improve the user-interaction interface. For example, a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses can be determined from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses based on the particular user, the context information such as observed responses in the past, and other device contexts. The determined set of predicted responses is thus customized and is more pertinent to a current conversational context. Moreover, techniques for providing a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses reduce the cumbersomeness associated with inputting or editing the responses. For example, if a fixed set of responses (e.g., canned responses) is provided regardless of the context, a user may be required to heavily edit the response, which may be cumbersome and time consuming. Thus, techniques for providing a contextually appropriate set improve the efficiencies and efficacy of the device. Furthermore, these techniques enhance the operability of the device and makes the user-device interface more efficient, which, additionally, reduces power usage and improves battery life of the device by enabling the user to use the device more quickly and efficiently.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system and environment for implementing a digital assistant, according to various examples.

FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating a portable multifunction device implementing the client-side portion of a digital assistant, according to various examples.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components for event handling, according to various examples.

FIG. 3 illustrates a portable multifunction device implementing the client-side portion of a digital assistant, according to various examples.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface, according to various examples.

FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary user interface for a menu of applications on a portable multifunction device, according to various examples.

FIG. 5B illustrates an exemplary user interface for a multifunction device with a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from the display, according to various examples.

FIG. 6A illustrates a personal electronic device, according to various examples.

FIG. 6B is a block diagram illustrating a personal electronic device, according to various examples.

FIG. 7A is a block diagram illustrating a digital assistant system or a server portion thereof, according to various examples.

FIG. 7B illustrates the functions of the digital assistant shown in FIG. 7A, according to various examples.

FIG. 7C illustrates a portion of an ontology, according to various examples.

FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a digital assistant for providing a set of predicted responses, according to various examples.

FIG. 9A illustrates a user interface for receiving one or more messages comprising unstructured natural language information, according to various examples.

FIG. 9B illustrates a plurality of message categories and their corresponding examples, according to various examples.

FIG. 10 illustrates a scenario for determining a set of predicted responses, according to various examples.

FIGS. 11A-11B illustrate a network for obtaining sequence representations of context information and candidate predicted responses, according to various examples.

FIG. 12 illustrates a sequence representation space including multiple sequence representations of context information and sets of candidate predicted responses, according to various examples.

FIG. 13 illustrates a user interface for providing a set of predicted response to the user, according to various examples.

FIGS. 14A-14C illustrate a process for providing a set of predicted responses, according to various examples.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description of examples, reference is made to the accompanying drawings in which are shown by way of illustration specific examples that can be practiced. It is to be understood that other examples can be used and structural changes can be made without departing from the scope of the various examples.

Techniques for providing a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses are desirable. A contextually appropriate set of predicted responses can be determined for a current conversation based on context information. As described, providing a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses improves the efficiency of a user-interaction interface. In some examples, the context information can include first contexts, second contexts, and observed responses. The first contexts and observed responses can include stored messages previously received; and the second contexts can include currently received messages. A sequence representation space can be obtained to represent the context information and multiple sets of candidate predicted responses. The sequence representation space can include sequence representations (e.g., vectors) of the context information and multiple sets of candidate predicted responses. The sequence representations can be generated based on data-driven learning networks (e.g., machine learning networks). Based on the correlation between the sequence representations within the sequence representation space, a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses can be obtained in an effective manner.

Although the following description uses terms “first,” “second,” etc. to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by the terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first input could be termed a second input, and, similarly, a second input could be termed a first input, without departing from the scope of the various described examples. The first input and the second input are both inputs and, in some cases, are separate and different inputs.

The terminology used in the description of the various described examples herein is for the purpose of describing particular examples only and is not intended to be limiting. As used in the description of the various described examples and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will also be understood that the term “and/or” as used herein refers to and encompasses any and all possible combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. It will be further understood that the terms “includes,” “including,” “comprises,” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

The term “if” may be construed to mean “when” or “upon” or “in response to determining” or “in response to detecting,” depending on the context. Similarly, the phrase “if it is determined” or “if [a stated condition or event] is detected” may be construed to mean “upon determining” or “in response to determining” or “upon detecting [the stated condition or event]” or “in response to detecting [the stated condition or event],” depending on the context.

1. System and Environment.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of system 100 according to various examples. In some examples, system 100 implements a digital assistant. The terms “digital assistant,” “virtual assistant,” “intelligent automated assistant,” or “automatic digital assistant” refer to any information processing system that interprets natural language input in spoken and/or textual form to infer user intent, and performs actions based on the inferred user intent. For example, to act on an inferred user intent, the system performs one or more of the following: identifying a task flow with steps and parameters designed to accomplish the inferred user intent, inputting specific requirements from the inferred user intent into the task flow; executing the task flow by invoking programs, methods, services, APIs, or the like; and generating output responses to the user in an audible (e.g., speech) and/or visual form.

Specifically, a digital assistant is capable of accepting a user request at least partially in the form of a natural language command, request, statement, narrative, and/or inquiry. Typically, the user request seeks either an informational answer or performance of a task by the digital assistant. A satisfactory response to the user request includes a provision of the requested informational answer, a performance of the requested task, or a combination of the two. For example, a user asks the digital assistant a question, such as “Where am I right now?” Based on the user's current location, the digital assistant answers, “You are in Central Park near the west gate.” The user also requests the performance of a task, for example, “Please invite my friends to my girlfriend's birthday party next week.” In response, the digital assistant can acknowledge the request by saying “Yes, right away,” and then send a suitable calendar invite on behalf of the user to each of the user's friends listed in the user's electronic address book. During performance of a requested task, the digital assistant sometimes interacts with the user in a continuous dialogue involving multiple exchanges of information over an extended period of time. There are numerous other ways of interacting with a digital assistant to request information or performance of various tasks. In addition to providing verbal responses and taking programmed actions, the digital assistant also provides responses in other visual or audio forms, e.g., as text, alerts, music, videos, animations, etc.

As shown in FIG. 1, in some examples, a digital assistant is implemented according to a client-server model. The digital assistant includes client-side portion 102 (hereafter “DA client 102”) executed on user device 104 and server-side portion 106 (hereafter “DA server 106”) executed on server system 108. DA client 102 communicates with DA server 106 through one or more networks 110. DA client 102 provides client-side functionalities such as user-facing input and output processing and communication with DA server 106. DA server 106 provides server-side functionalities for any number of DA clients 102 each residing on a respective user device 104.

In some examples, DA server 106 includes client-facing I/O interface 112, one or more processing modules 114, data and models 116, and I/O interface to external services 118. The client-facing I/O interface 112 facilitates the client-facing input and output processing for DA server 106. One or more processing modules 114 utilize data and models 116 to process speech input and determine the user's intent based on natural language input. Further, one or more processing modules 114 perform task execution based on inferred user intent. In some examples, DA server 106 communicates with external services 120 through network(s) 110 for task completion or information acquisition. I/O interface to external services 118 facilitates such communications.

User device 104 can be any suitable electronic device. In some examples, user device is a portable multifunctional device (e.g., device 200, described below with reference to FIG. 2A), a multifunctional device (e.g., device 400, described below with reference to FIG. 4), or a personal electronic device (e.g., device 600, described below with reference to FIG. 6A-B.) A portable multifunctional device is, for example, a mobile telephone that also contains other functions, such as PDA and/or music player functions. Specific examples of portable multifunction devices include the iPhone®, iPod Touch®, and iPad® devices from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Other examples of portable multifunction devices include, without limitation, laptop or tablet computers. Further, in some examples, user device 104 is a non-portable multifunctional device. In particular, user device 104 is a desktop computer, a game console, a television, or a television set-top box. In some examples, user device 104 includes a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., touch screen displays and/or touchpads). Further, user device 104 optionally includes one or more other physical user-interface devices, such as a physical keyboard, a mouse, and/or a joystick. Various examples of electronic devices, such as multifunctional devices, are described below in greater detail.

Examples of communication network(s) 110 include local area networks (LAN) and wide area networks (WAN), e.g., the Internet. Communication network(s) 110 is implemented using any known network protocol, including various wired or wireless protocols, such as, for example, Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE), code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, or any other suitable communication protocol.

Server system 108 is implemented on one or more standalone data processing apparatus or a distributed network of computers. In some examples, server system 108 also employs various virtual devices and/or services of third-party service providers (e.g., third-party cloud service providers) to provide the underlying computing resources and/or infrastructure resources of server system 108.

In some examples, user device 104 communicates with DA server 106 via second user device 122. Second user device 122 is similar or identical to user device 104. For example, second user device 122 is similar to devices 200, 400, or 600 described below with reference to FIGS. 2A, 4, and 6A-B. User device 104 is configured to communicatively couple to second user device 122 via a direct communication connection, such as Bluetooth, NFC, BTLE, or the like, or via a wired or wireless network, such as a local Wi-Fi network. In some examples, second user device 122 is configured to act as a proxy between user device 104 and DA server 106. For example, DA client 102 of user device 104 is configured to transmit information (e.g., a user request received at user device 104) to DA server 106 via second user device 122. DA server 106 processes the information and return relevant data (e.g., data content responsive to the user request) to user device 104 via second user device 122.

In some examples, user device 104 is configured to communicate abbreviated requests for data to second user device 122 to reduce the amount of information transmitted from user device 104. Second user device 122 is configured to determine supplemental information to add to the abbreviated request to generate a complete request to transmit to DA server 106. This system architecture can advantageously allow user device 104 having limited communication capabilities and/or limited battery power (e.g., a watch or a similar compact electronic device) to access services provided by DA server 106 by using second user device 122, having greater communication capabilities and/or battery power (e.g., a mobile phone, laptop computer, tablet computer, or the like), as a proxy to DA server 106. While only two user devices 104 and 122 are shown in FIG. 1, it should be appreciated that system 100, in some examples, includes any number and type of user devices configured in this proxy configuration to communicate with DA server system 106.

Although the digital assistant shown in FIG. 1 includes both a client-side portion (e.g., DA client 102) and a server-side portion (e.g., DA server 106), in some examples, the functions of a digital assistant are implemented as a standalone application installed on a user device. In addition, the divisions of functionalities between the client and server portions of the digital assistant can vary in different implementations. For instance, in some examples, the DA client is a thin-client that provides only user-facing input and output processing functions, and delegates all other functionalities of the digital assistant to a backend server.

2. Electronic Devices

Attention is now directed toward embodiments of electronic devices for implementing the client-side portion of a digital assistant. FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating portable multifunction device 200 with touch-sensitive display system 212 in accordance with some embodiments. Touch-sensitive display 212 is sometimes called a “touch screen” for convenience and is sometimes known as or called a “touch-sensitive display system.” Device 200 includes memory 202 (which optionally includes one or more computer-readable storage mediums), memory controller 222, one or more processing units (CPUs) 220, peripherals interface 218, RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, microphone 213, input/output (I/O) subsystem 206, other input control devices 216, and external port 224. Device 200 optionally includes one or more optical sensors 264. Device 200 optionally includes one or more contact intensity sensors 265 for detecting intensity of contacts on device 200 (e.g., a touch-sensitive surface such as touch-sensitive display system 212 of device 200). Device 200 optionally includes one or more tactile output generators 267 for generating tactile outputs on device 200 (e.g., generating tactile outputs on a touch-sensitive surface such as touch-sensitive display system 212 of device 200 or touchpad 455 of device 400). These components optionally communicate over one or more communication buses or signal lines 203.

As used in the specification and claims, the term “intensity” of a contact on a touch-sensitive surface refers to the force or pressure (force per unit area) of a contact (e.g., a finger contact) on the touch-sensitive surface, or to a substitute (proxy) for the force or pressure of a contact on the touch-sensitive surface. The intensity of a contact has a range of values that includes at least four distinct values and more typically includes hundreds of distinct values (e.g., at least 256). Intensity of a contact is, optionally, determined (or measured) using various approaches and various sensors or combinations of sensors. For example, one or more force sensors underneath or adjacent to the touch-sensitive surface are, optionally, used to measure force at various points on the touch-sensitive surface. In some implementations, force measurements from multiple force sensors are combined (e.g., a weighted average) to determine an estimated force of a contact. Similarly, a pressure-sensitive tip of a stylus is, optionally, used to determine a pressure of the stylus on the touch-sensitive surface. Alternatively, the size of the contact area detected on the touch-sensitive surface and/or changes thereto, the capacitance of the touch-sensitive surface proximate to the contact and/or changes thereto, and/or the resistance of the touch-sensitive surface proximate to the contact and/or changes thereto are, optionally, used as a substitute for the force or pressure of the contact on the touch-sensitive surface. In some implementations, the substitute measurements for contact force or pressure are used directly to determine whether an intensity threshold has been exceeded (e.g., the intensity threshold is described in units corresponding to the substitute measurements). In some implementations, the substitute measurements for contact force or pressure are converted to an estimated force or pressure, and the estimated force or pressure is used to determine whether an intensity threshold has been exceeded (e.g., the intensity threshold is a pressure threshold measured in units of pressure). Using the intensity of a contact as an attribute of a user input allows for user access to additional device functionality that may otherwise not be accessible by the user on a reduced-size device with limited real estate for displaying affordances (e.g., on a touch-sensitive display) and/or receiving user input (e.g., via a touch-sensitive display, a touch-sensitive surface, or a physical/mechanical control such as a knob or a button).

As used in the specification and claims, the term “tactile output” refers to physical displacement of a device relative to a previous position of the device, physical displacement of a component (e.g., a touch-sensitive surface) of a device relative to another component (e.g., housing) of the device, or displacement of the component relative to a center of mass of the device that will be detected by a user with the user's sense of touch. For example, in situations where the device or the component of the device is in contact with a surface of a user that is sensitive to touch (e.g., a finger, palm, or other part of a user's hand), the tactile output generated by the physical displacement will be interpreted by the user as a tactile sensation corresponding to a perceived change in physical characteristics of the device or the component of the device. For example, movement of a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., a touch-sensitive display or trackpad) is, optionally, interpreted by the user as a “down click” or “up click” of a physical actuator button. In some cases, a user will feel a tactile sensation such as an “down click” or “up click” even when there is no movement of a physical actuator button associated with the touch-sensitive surface that is physically pressed (e.g., displaced) by the user's movements. As another example, movement of the touch-sensitive surface is, optionally, interpreted or sensed by the user as “roughness” of the touch-sensitive surface, even when there is no change in smoothness of the touch-sensitive surface. While such interpretations of touch by a user will be subject to the individualized sensory perceptions of the user, there are many sensory perceptions of touch that are common to a large majority of users. Thus, when a tactile output is described as corresponding to a particular sensory perception of a user (e.g., an “up click,” a “down click,” “roughness”), unless otherwise stated, the generated tactile output corresponds to physical displacement of the device or a component thereof that will generate the described sensory perception for a typical (or average) user.

It should be appreciated that device 200 is only one example of a portable multifunction device, and that device 200 optionally has more or fewer components than shown, optionally combines two or more components, or optionally has a different configuration or arrangement of the components. The various components shown in FIG. 2A are implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of both hardware and software, including one or more signal processing and/or application-specific integrated circuits.

Memory 202 includes one or more computer-readable storage mediums. The computer-readable storage mediums are, for example, tangible and non-transitory. Memory 202 includes high-speed random access memory and also includes non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid-state memory devices. Memory controller 222 controls access to memory 202 by other components of device 200.

In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of memory 202 is used to store instructions (e.g., for performing aspects of processes described below) for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, such as a computer-based system, processor-containing system, or other system that can fetch the instructions from the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device and execute the instructions. In other examples, the instructions (e.g., for performing aspects of the processes described below) are stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (not shown) of the server system 108 or are divided between the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of memory 202 and the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of server system 108.

Peripherals interface 218 is used to couple input and output peripherals of the device to CPU 220 and memory 202. The one or more processors 220 run or execute various software programs and/or sets of instructions stored in memory 202 to perform various functions for device 200 and to process data. In some embodiments, peripherals interface 218, CPU 220, and memory controller 222 are implemented on a single chip, such as chip 204. In some other embodiments, they are implemented on separate chips.

RF (radio frequency) circuitry 208 receives and sends RF signals, also called electromagnetic signals. RF circuitry 208 converts electrical signals to/from electromagnetic signals and communicates with communications networks and other communications devices via the electromagnetic signals. RF circuitry 208 optionally includes well-known circuitry for performing these functions, including but not limited to an antenna system, an RF transceiver, one or more amplifiers, a tuner, one or more oscillators, a digital signal processor, a CODEC chipset, a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, memory, and so forth. RF circuitry 208 optionally communicates with networks, such as the Internet, also referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW), an intranet and/or a wireless network, such as a cellular telephone network, a wireless local area network (LAN) and/or a metropolitan area network (MAN), and other devices by wireless communication. The RF circuitry 208 optionally includes well-known circuitry for detecting near field communication (NFC) fields, such as by a short-range communication radio. The wireless communication optionally uses any of a plurality of communications standards, protocols, and technologies, including but not limited to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE), high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), high-speed uplink packet access (HSDPA), Evolution, Data-Only (EV-DO), HSPA, HSPA+, Dual-Cell HSPA (DC-HSPDA), long term evolution (LTE), near field communication (NFC), wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) (e.g., IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n, and/or IEEE 802.11ac), voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, a protocol for e mail (e.g., Internet message access protocol (IMAP) and/or post office protocol (POP)), instant messaging (e.g., extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP), Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), Instant Messaging and Presence Service (IMPS)), and/or Short Message Service (SMS), or any other suitable communication protocol, including communication protocols not yet developed as of the filing date of this document.

Audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, and microphone 213 provide an audio interface between a user and device 200. Audio circuitry 210 receives audio data from peripherals interface 218, converts the audio data to an electrical signal, and transmits the electrical signal to speaker 211. Speaker 211 converts the electrical signal to human-audible sound waves. Audio circuitry 210 also receives electrical signals converted by microphone 213 from sound waves. Audio circuitry 210 converts the electrical signal to audio data and transmits the audio data to peripherals interface 218 for processing. Audio data are retrieved from and/or transmitted to memory 202 and/or RF circuitry 208 by peripherals interface 218. In some embodiments, audio circuitry 210 also includes a headset jack (e.g., 312, FIG. 3). The headset jack provides an interface between audio circuitry 210 and removable audio input/output peripherals, such as output-only headphones or a headset with both output (e.g., a headphone for one or both ears) and input (e.g., a microphone).

I/O subsystem 206 couples input/output peripherals on device 200, such as touch screen 212 and other input control devices 216, to peripherals interface 218. I/O subsystem 206 optionally includes display controller 256, optical sensor controller 258, intensity sensor controller 259, haptic feedback controller 261, and one or more input controllers 260 for other input or control devices. The one or more input controllers 260 receive/send electrical signals from/to other input control devices 216. The other input control devices 216 optionally include physical buttons (e.g., push buttons, rocker buttons, etc.), dials, slider switches, joysticks, click wheels, and so forth. In some alternate embodiments, input controller(s) 260 are, optionally, coupled to any (or none) of the following: a keyboard, an infrared port, a USB port, and a pointer device such as a mouse. The one or more buttons (e.g., 308, FIG. 3) optionally include an up/down button for volume control of speaker 211 and/or microphone 213. The one or more buttons optionally include a push button (e.g., 306, FIG. 3).

A quick press of the push button disengages a lock of touch screen 212 or begin a process that uses gestures on the touch screen to unlock the device, as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/322,549, “Unlocking a Device by Performing Gestures on an Unlock Image,” filed Dec. 23, 2005, U.S. Pat. No. 7,657,849, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. A longer press of the push button (e.g., 306) turns power to device 200 on or off. The user is able to customize a functionality of one or more of the buttons. Touch screen 212 is used to implement virtual or soft buttons and one or more soft keyboards.

Touch-sensitive display 212 provides an input interface and an output interface between the device and a user. Display controller 256 receives and/or sends electrical signals from/to touch screen 212. Touch screen 212 displays visual output to the user. The visual output includes graphics, text, icons, video, and any combination thereof (collectively termed “graphics”). In some embodiments, some or all of the visual output correspond to user-interface objects.

Touch screen 212 has a touch-sensitive surface, sensor, or set of sensors that accepts input from the user based on haptic and/or tactile contact. Touch screen 212 and display controller 256 (along with any associated modules and/or sets of instructions in memory 202) detect contact (and any movement or breaking of the contact) on touch screen 212 and convert the detected contact into interaction with user-interface objects (e.g., one or more soft keys, icons, web pages, or images) that are displayed on touch screen 212. In an exemplary embodiment, a point of contact between touch screen 212 and the user corresponds to a finger of the user.

Touch screen 212 uses LCD (liquid crystal display) technology, LPD (light emitting polymer display) technology, or LED (light emitting diode) technology, although other display technologies may be used in other embodiments. Touch screen 212 and display controller 256 detect contact and any movement or breaking thereof using any of a plurality of touch sensing technologies now known or later developed, including but not limited to capacitive, resistive, infrared, and surface acoustic wave technologies, as well as other proximity sensor arrays or other elements for determining one or more points of contact with touch screen 212. In an exemplary embodiment, projected mutual capacitance sensing technology is used, such as that found in the iPhone® and iPod Touch® from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.

A touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of touch screen 212 is analogous to the multi-touch sensitive touchpads described in the following U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,846 (Westerman et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,570,557 (Westerman et al.), and/or U.S. Pat. No. 6,677,932 (Westerman), and/or U.S. Patent Publication 2002/0015024A1, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. However, touch screen 212 displays visual output from device 200, whereas touch-sensitive touchpads do not provide visual output.

A touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of touch screen 212 is as described in the following applications: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/381,313, “Multipoint Touch Surface Controller,” filed May 2, 2006; (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/840,862, “Multipoint Touchscreen,” filed May 6, 2004; (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/903,964, “Gestures For Touch Sensitive Input Devices,” filed Jul. 30, 2004; (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/048,264, “Gestures For Touch Sensitive Input Devices,” filed Jan. 31, 2005; (5) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/038,590, “Mode-Based Graphical User Interfaces For Touch Sensitive Input Devices,” filed Jan. 18, 2005; (6) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,758, “Virtual Input Device Placement On A Touch Screen User Interface,” filed Sep. 16, 2005; (7) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,700, “Operation Of A Computer With A Touch Screen Interface,” filed Sep. 16, 2005; (8) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,737, “Activating Virtual Keys Of A Touch-Screen Virtual Keyboard,” filed Sep. 16, 2005; and (9) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/367,749, “Multi-Functional Hand-Held Device,” filed Mar. 3, 2006. All of these applications are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

Touch screen 212 has, for example, a video resolution in excess of 100 dpi. In some embodiments, the touch screen has a video resolution of approximately 160 dpi. The user makes contact with touch screen 212 using any suitable object or appendage, such as a stylus, a finger, and so forth. In some embodiments, the user interface is designed to work primarily with finger-based contacts and gestures, which can be less precise than stylus-based input due to the larger area of contact of a finger on the touch screen. In some embodiments, the device translates the rough finger-based input into a precise pointer/cursor position or command for performing the actions desired by the user.

In some embodiments, in addition to the touch screen, device 200 includes a touchpad (not shown) for activating or deactivating particular functions. In some embodiments, the touchpad is a touch-sensitive area of the device that, unlike the touch screen, does not display visual output. The touchpad is a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from touch screen 212 or an extension of the touch-sensitive surface formed by the touch screen.

Device 200 also includes power system 262 for powering the various components. Power system 262 includes a power management system, one or more power sources (e.g., battery, alternating current (AC)), a recharging system, a power failure detection circuit, a power converter or inverter, a power status indicator (e.g., a light-emitting diode (LED)) and any other components associated with the generation, management and distribution of power in portable devices.

Device 200 also includes one or more optical sensors 264. FIG. 2A shows an optical sensor coupled to optical sensor controller 258 in I/O subsystem 206. Optical sensor 264 includes charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) phototransistors. Optical sensor 264 receives light from the environment, projected through one or more lenses, and converts the light to data representing an image. In conjunction with imaging module 243 (also called a camera module), optical sensor 264 captures still images or video. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of device 200, opposite touch screen display 212 on the front of the device so that the touch screen display is used as a viewfinder for still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user's image is obtained for video conferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, the position of optical sensor 264 can be changed by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a single optical sensor 264 is used along with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.

Device 200 optionally also includes one or more contact intensity sensors 265. FIG. 2A shows a contact intensity sensor coupled to intensity sensor controller 259 in I/O subsystem 206. Contact intensity sensor 265 optionally includes one or more piezoresistive strain gauges, capacitive force sensors, electric force sensors, piezoelectric force sensors, optical force sensors, capacitive touch-sensitive surfaces, or other intensity sensors (e.g., sensors used to measure the force (or pressure) of a contact on a touch-sensitive surface). Contact intensity sensor 265 receives contact intensity information (e.g., pressure information or a proxy for pressure information) from the environment. In some embodiments, at least one contact intensity sensor is collocated with, or proximate to, a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., touch-sensitive display system 212). In some embodiments, at least one contact intensity sensor is located on the back of device 200, opposite touch screen display 212, which is located on the front of device 200.

Device 200 also includes one or more proximity sensors 266. FIG. 2A shows proximity sensor 266 coupled to peripherals interface 218. Alternately, proximity sensor 266 is coupled to input controller 260 in I/O subsystem 206. Proximity sensor 266 is performed as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/241,839, “Proximity Detector In Handheld Device”; Ser. No. 11/240,788, “Proximity Detector In Handheld Device”; Ser. No. 11/620,702, “Using Ambient Light Sensor To Augment Proximity Sensor Output”; Ser. No. 11/586,862, “Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices”; and Ser. No. 11/638,251, “Methods And Systems For Automatic Configuration Of Peripherals,” which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. In some embodiments, the proximity sensor turns off and disables touch screen 212 when the multifunction device is placed near the user's ear (e.g., when the user is making a phone call).

Device 200 optionally also includes one or more tactile output generators 267. FIG. 2A shows a tactile output generator coupled to haptic feedback controller 261 in I/O subsystem 206. Tactile output generator 267 optionally includes one or more electroacoustic devices such as speakers or other audio components and/or electromechanical devices that convert energy into linear motion such as a motor, solenoid, electroactive polymer, piezoelectric actuator, electrostatic actuator, or other tactile output generating component (e.g., a component that converts electrical signals into tactile outputs on the device). Contact intensity sensor 265 receives tactile feedback generation instructions from haptic feedback module 233 and generates tactile outputs on device 200 that are capable of being sensed by a user of device 200. In some embodiments, at least one tactile output generator is collocated with, or proximate to, a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., touch-sensitive display system 212) and, optionally, generates a tactile output by moving the touch-sensitive surface vertically (e.g., in/out of a surface of device 200) or laterally (e.g., back and forth in the same plane as a surface of device 200). In some embodiments, at least one tactile output generator sensor is located on the back of device 200, opposite touch screen display 212, which is located on the front of device 200.

Device 200 also includes one or more accelerometers 268. FIG. 2A shows accelerometer 268 coupled to peripherals interface 218. Alternately, accelerometer 268 is coupled to an input controller 260 in I/O subsystem 206. Accelerometer 268 performs, for example, as described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 20050190059, “Acceleration-based Theft Detection System for Portable Electronic Devices,” and U.S. Patent Publication No. 20060017692, “Methods And Apparatuses For Operating A Portable Device Based On An Accelerometer,” both of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. In some embodiments, information is displayed on the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers. Device 200 optionally includes, in addition to accelerometer(s) 268, a magnetometer (not shown) and a GPS (or GLONASS or other global navigation system) receiver (not shown) for obtaining information concerning the location and orientation (e.g., portrait or landscape) of device 200.

In some embodiments, the software components stored in memory 202 include operating system 226, communication module (or set of instructions) 228, contact/motion module (or set of instructions) 230, graphics module (or set of instructions) 232, text input module (or set of instructions) 234, Global Positioning System (GPS) module (or set of instructions) 235, Digital Assistant Client Module 229, and applications (or sets of instructions) 236. Further, memory 202 stores data and models, such as user data and models 231. Furthermore, in some embodiments, memory 202 (FIG. 2A) or 470 (FIG. 4) stores device/global internal state 257, as shown in FIGS. 2A and 4. Device/global internal state 257 includes one or more of: active application state, indicating which applications, if any, are currently active; display state, indicating what applications, views or other information occupy various regions of touch screen display 212; sensor state, including information obtained from the device's various sensors and input control devices 216; and location information concerning the device's location and/or attitude.

Operating system 226 (e.g., Darwin, RTXC, LINUX, UNIX, OS X, iOS, WINDOWS, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks) includes various software components and/or drivers for controlling and managing general system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage device control, power management, etc.) and facilitates communication between various hardware and software components.

Communication module 228 facilitates communication with other devices over one or more external ports 224 and also includes various software components for handling data received by RF circuitry 208 and/or external port 224. External port 224 (e.g., Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, etc.) is adapted for coupling directly to other devices or indirectly over a network (e.g., the Internet, wireless LAN, etc.). In some embodiments, the external port is a multi-pin (e.g., 30-pin) connector that is the same as, or similar to and/or compatible with, the 30-pin connector used on iPod® (trademark of Apple Inc.) devices.

Contact/motion module 230 optionally detects contact with touch screen 212 (in conjunction with display controller 256) and other touch-sensitive devices (e.g., a touchpad or physical click wheel). Contact/motion module 230 includes various software components for performing various operations related to detection of contact, such as determining if contact has occurred (e.g., detecting a finger-down event), determining an intensity of the contact (e.g., the force or pressure of the contact or a substitute for the force or pressure of the contact), determining if there is movement of the contact and tracking the movement across the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., detecting one or more finger-dragging events), and determining if the contact has ceased (e.g., detecting a finger-up event or a break in contact). Contact/motion module 230 receives contact data from the touch-sensitive surface. Determining movement of the point of contact, which is represented by a series of contact data, optionally includes determining speed (magnitude), velocity (magnitude and direction), and/or an acceleration (a change in magnitude and/or direction) of the point of contact. These operations are, optionally, applied to single contacts (e.g., one finger contacts) or to multiple simultaneous contacts (e.g., “multitouch”/multiple finger contacts). In some embodiments, contact/motion module 230 and display controller 256 detect contact on a touchpad.

In some embodiments, contact/motion module 230 uses a set of one or more intensity thresholds to determine whether an operation has been performed by a user (e.g., to determine whether a user has “clicked” on an icon). In some embodiments, at least a subset of the intensity thresholds are determined in accordance with software parameters (e.g., the intensity thresholds are not determined by the activation thresholds of particular physical actuators and can be adjusted without changing the physical hardware of device 200). For example, a mouse “click” threshold of a trackpad or touch screen display can be set to any of a large range of predefined threshold values without changing the trackpad or touch screen display hardware. Additionally, in some implementations, a user of the device is provided with software settings for adjusting one or more of the set of intensity thresholds (e.g., by adjusting individual intensity thresholds and/or by adjusting a plurality of intensity thresholds at once with a system-level click “intensity” parameter).

Contact/motion module 230 optionally detects a gesture input by a user. Different gestures on the touch-sensitive surface have different contact patterns (e.g., different motions, timings, and/or intensities of detected contacts). Thus, a gesture is, optionally, detected by detecting a particular contact pattern. For example, detecting a finger tap gesture includes detecting a finger-down event followed by detecting a finger-up (liftoff) event at the same position (or substantially the same position) as the finger-down event (e.g., at the position of an icon). As another example, detecting a finger swipe gesture on the touch-sensitive surface includes detecting a finger-down event followed by detecting one or more finger-dragging events, and subsequently followed by detecting a finger-up (liftoff) event.

Graphics module 232 includes various known software components for rendering and displaying graphics on touch screen 212 or other display, including components for changing the visual impact (e.g., brightness, transparency, saturation, contrast, or other visual property) of graphics that are displayed. As used herein, the term “graphics” includes any object that can be displayed to a user, including, without limitation, text, web pages, icons (such as user-interface objects including soft keys), digital images, videos, animations, and the like.

In some embodiments, graphics module 232 stores data representing graphics to be used. Each graphic is, optionally, assigned a corresponding code. Graphics module 232 receives, from applications etc., one or more codes specifying graphics to be displayed along with, if necessary, coordinate data and other graphic property data, and then generates screen image data to output to display controller 256.

Haptic feedback module 233 includes various software components for generating instructions used by tactile output generator(s) 267 to produce tactile outputs at one or more locations on device 200 in response to user interactions with device 200.

Text input module 234, which is, in some examples, a component of graphics module 232, provides soft keyboards for entering text in various applications (e.g., contacts 237, email 240, IM 241, browser 247, and any other application that needs text input).

GPS module 235 determines the location of the device and provides this information for use in various applications (e.g., to telephone 238 for use in location-based dialing; to camera 243 as picture/video metadata; and to applications that provide location-based services such as weather widgets, local yellow page widgets, and map/navigation widgets).

Digital assistant client module 229 includes various client-side digital assistant instructions to provide the client-side functionalities of the digital assistant. For example, digital assistant client module 229 is capable of accepting voice input (e.g., speech input), text input, touch input, and/or gestural input through various user interfaces (e.g., microphone 213, accelerometer(s) 268, touch-sensitive display system 212, optical sensor(s) 229, other input control devices 216, etc.) of portable multifunction device 200. Digital assistant client module 229 is also capable of providing output in audio (e.g., speech output), visual, and/or tactile forms through various output interfaces (e.g., speaker 211, touch-sensitive display system 212, tactile output generator(s) 267, etc.) of portable multifunction device 200. For example, output is provided as voice, sound, alerts, text messages, menus, graphics, videos, animations, vibrations, and/or combinations of two or more of the above. During operation, digital assistant client module 229 communicates with DA server 106 using RF circuitry 208.

User data and models 231 include various data associated with the user (e.g., user-specific vocabulary data, user preference data, user-specified name pronunciations, data from the user's electronic address book, to-do lists, shopping lists, etc.) to provide the client-side functionalities of the digital assistant. Further, user data and models 231 include various models (e.g., speech recognition models, statistical language models, natural language processing models, ontology, task flow models, service models, etc.) for processing user input and determining user intent.

In some examples, digital assistant client module 229 utilizes the various sensors, subsystems, and peripheral devices of portable multifunction device 200 to gather additional information from the surrounding environment of the portable multifunction device 200 to establish a context associated with a user, the current user interaction, and/or the current user input. In some examples, digital assistant client module 229 provides the contextual information or a subset thereof with the user input to DA server 106 to help infer the user's intent. In some examples, the digital assistant also uses the contextual information to determine how to prepare and deliver outputs to the user. Contextual information is referred to as context data.

In some examples, the contextual information that accompanies the user input includes sensor information, e.g., lighting, ambient noise, ambient temperature, images or videos of the surrounding environment, etc. In some examples, the contextual information can also includes the physical state of the device, e.g., device orientation, device location, device temperature, power level, speed, acceleration, motion patterns, cellular signals strength, etc. In some examples, information related to the software state of DA server 106, e.g., running processes, installed programs, past and present network activities, background services, error logs, resources usage, etc., and of portable multifunction device 200 is provided to DA server 106 as contextual information associated with a user input.

In some examples, the digital assistant client module 229 selectively provides information (e.g., user data 231) stored on the portable multifunction device 200 in response to requests from DA server 106. In some examples, digital assistant client module 229 also elicits additional input from the user via a natural language dialogue or other user interfaces upon request by DA server 106. Digital assistant client module 229 passes the additional input to DA server 106 to help DA server 106 in intent deduction and/or fulfillment of the user's intent expressed in the user request.

A more detailed description of a digital assistant is described below with reference to FIGS. 7A-C. It should be recognized that digital assistant client module 229 can include any number of the sub-modules of digital assistant module 726 described below.

Applications 236 include the following modules (or sets of instructions), or a subset or superset thereof:

-   -   Contacts module 237 (sometimes called an address book or contact         list);     -   Telephone module 238;     -   Video conference module 239;     -   E-mail client module 240;     -   Instant messaging (IM) module 241;     -   Workout support module 242;     -   Camera module 243 for still and/or video images;     -   Image management module 244;     -   Video player module;     -   Music player module;     -   Browser module 247;     -   Calendar module 248;     -   Widget modules 249, which includes, in some examples, one or         more of: weather widget 249-1, stocks widget 249-2, calculator         widget 249-3, alarm clock widget 249-4, dictionary widget 249-5,         and other widgets obtained by the user, as well as user-created         widgets 249-6;     -   Widget creator module 250 for making user-created widgets 249-6;     -   Search module 251;     -   Video and music player module 252, which merges video player         module and music player module;     -   Notes module 253;     -   Map module 254; and/or     -   Online video module 255.

Examples of other applications 236 that are stored in memory 202 include other word processing applications, other image editing applications, drawing applications, presentation applications, JAVA-enabled applications, encryption, digital rights management, voice recognition, and voice replication.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, contacts module 237 are used to manage an address book or contact list (e.g., stored in application internal state 292 of contacts module 237 in memory 202 or memory 470), including: adding name(s) to the address book; deleting name(s) from the address book; associating telephone number(s), e-mail address(es), physical address(es) or other information with a name; associating an image with a name; categorizing and sorting names; providing telephone numbers or e-mail addresses to initiate and/or facilitate communications by telephone 238, video conference module 239, e-mail 240, or IM 241; and so forth.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, microphone 213, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, telephone module 238 are used to enter a sequence of characters corresponding to a telephone number, access one or more telephone numbers in contacts module 237, modify a telephone number that has been entered, dial a respective telephone number, conduct a conversation, and disconnect or hang up when the conversation is completed. As noted above, the wireless communication uses any of a plurality of communications standards, protocols, and technologies.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, microphone 213, touch screen 212, display controller 256, optical sensor 264, optical sensor controller 258, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234, contacts module 237, and telephone module 238, video conference module 239 includes executable instructions to initiate, conduct, and terminate a video conference between a user and one or more other participants in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, e-mail client module 240 includes executable instructions to create, send, receive, and manage e-mail in response to user instructions. In conjunction with image management module 244, e-mail client module 240 makes it very easy to create and send e-mails with still or video images taken with camera module 243.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, the instant messaging module 241 includes executable instructions to enter a sequence of characters corresponding to an instant message, to modify previously entered characters, to transmit a respective instant message (for example, using a Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Message Service (MMS) protocol for telephony-based instant messages or using XMPP, SIMPLE, or IMPS for Internet-based instant messages), to receive instant messages, and to view received instant messages. In some embodiments, transmitted and/or received instant messages include graphics, photos, audio files, video files and/or other attachments as are supported in an MMS and/or an Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS). As used herein, “instant messaging” refers to both telephony-based messages (e.g., messages sent using SMS or MMS) and Internet-based messages (e.g., messages sent using XMPP, SIMPLE, or IMPS).

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234, GPS module 235, map module 254, and music player module, workout support module 242 includes executable instructions to create workouts (e.g., with time, distance, and/or calorie burning goals); communicate with workout sensors (sports devices); receive workout sensor data; calibrate sensors used to monitor a workout; select and play music for a workout; and display, store, and transmit workout data.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, optical sensor(s) 264, optical sensor controller 258, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and image management module 244, camera module 243 includes executable instructions to capture still images or video (including a video stream) and store them into memory 202, modify characteristics of a still image or video, or delete a still image or video from memory 202.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234, and camera module 243, image management module 244 includes executable instructions to arrange, modify (e.g., edit), or otherwise manipulate, label, delete, present (e.g., in a digital slide show or album), and store still and/or video images.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, browser module 247 includes executable instructions to browse the Internet in accordance with user instructions, including searching, linking to, receiving, and displaying web pages or portions thereof, as well as attachments and other files linked to web pages.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234, e-mail client module 240, and browser module 247, calendar module 248 includes executable instructions to create, display, modify, and store calendars and data associated with calendars (e.g., calendar entries, to-do lists, etc.) in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234, and browser module 247, widget modules 249 are mini-applications that can be downloaded and used by a user (e.g., weather widget 249-1, stocks widget 249-2, calculator widget 249-3, alarm clock widget 249-4, and dictionary widget 249-5) or created by the user (e.g., user-created widget 249-6). In some embodiments, a widget includes an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) file, a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) file, and a JavaScript file. In some embodiments, a widget includes an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file and a JavaScript file (e.g., Yahoo! Widgets).

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234, and browser module 247, the widget creator module 250 are used by a user to create widgets (e.g., turning a user-specified portion of a web page into a widget).

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, search module 251 includes executable instructions to search for text, music, sound, image, video, and/or other files in memory 202 that match one or more search criteria (e.g., one or more user-specified search terms) in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, RF circuitry 208, and browser module 247, video and music player module 252 includes executable instructions that allow the user to download and play back recorded music and other sound files stored in one or more file formats, such as MP3 or AAC files, and executable instructions to display, present, or otherwise play back videos (e.g., on touch screen 212 or on an external, connected display via external port 224). In some embodiments, device 200 optionally includes the functionality of an MP3 player, such as an iPod (trademark of Apple Inc.).

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, notes module 253 includes executable instructions to create and manage notes, to-do lists, and the like in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234, GPS module 235, and browser module 247, map module 254 are used to receive, display, modify, and store maps and data associated with maps (e.g., driving directions, data on stores and other points of interest at or near a particular location, and other location-based data) in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, RF circuitry 208, text input module 234, e-mail client module 240, and browser module 247, online video module 255 includes instructions that allow the user to access, browse, receive (e.g., by streaming and/or download), play back (e.g., on the touch screen or on an external, connected display via external port 224), send an e-mail with a link to a particular online video, and otherwise manage online videos in one or more file formats, such as H.264. In some embodiments, instant messaging module 241, rather than e-mail client module 240, is used to send a link to a particular online video. Additional description of the online video application can be found in U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/936,562, “Portable Multifunction Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Playing Online Videos,” filed Jun. 20, 2007, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/968,067, “Portable Multifunction Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Playing Online Videos,” filed Dec. 31, 2007, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

Each of the above-identified modules and applications corresponds to a set of executable instructions for performing one or more functions described above and the methods described in this application (e.g., the computer-implemented methods and other information processing methods described herein). These modules (e.g., sets of instructions) need not be implemented as separate software programs, procedures, or modules, and thus various subsets of these modules can be combined or otherwise rearranged in various embodiments. For example, video player module can be combined with music player module into a single module (e.g., video and music player module 252, FIG. 2A). In some embodiments, memory 202 stores a subset of the modules and data structures identified above. Furthermore, memory 202 stores additional modules and data structures not described above.

In some embodiments, device 200 is a device where operation of a predefined set of functions on the device is performed exclusively through a touch screen and/or a touchpad. By using a touch screen and/or a touchpad as the primary input control device for operation of device 200, the number of physical input control devices (such as push buttons, dials, and the like) on device 200 is reduced.

The predefined set of functions that are performed exclusively through a touch screen and/or a touchpad optionally include navigation between user interfaces. In some embodiments, the touchpad, when touched by the user, navigates device 200 to a main, home, or root menu from any user interface that is displayed on device 200. In such embodiments, a “menu button” is implemented using a touchpad. In some other embodiments, the menu button is a physical push button or other physical input control device instead of a touchpad.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components for event handling in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, memory 202 (FIG. 2A) or 470 (FIG. 4) includes event sorter 270 (e.g., in operating system 226) and a respective application 236-1 (e.g., any of the aforementioned applications 237-251, 255, 480-490).

Event sorter 270 receives event information and determines the application 236-1 and application view 291 of application 236-1 to which to deliver the event information. Event sorter 270 includes event monitor 271 and event dispatcher module 274. In some embodiments, application 236-1 includes application internal state 292, which indicates the current application view(s) displayed on touch-sensitive display 212 when the application is active or executing. In some embodiments, device/global internal state 257 is used by event sorter 270 to determine which application(s) is (are) currently active, and application internal state 292 is used by event sorter 270 to determine application views 291 to which to deliver event information.

In some embodiments, application internal state 292 includes additional information, such as one or more of: resume information to be used when application 236-1 resumes execution, user interface state information that indicates information being displayed or that is ready for display by application 236-1, a state queue for enabling the user to go back to a prior state or view of application 236-1, and a redo/undo queue of previous actions taken by the user.

Event monitor 271 receives event information from peripherals interface 218. Event information includes information about a sub-event (e.g., a user touch on touch-sensitive display 212, as part of a multi-touch gesture). Peripherals interface 218 transmits information it receives from I/O subsystem 206 or a sensor, such as proximity sensor 266, accelerometer(s) 268, and/or microphone 213 (through audio circuitry 210). Information that peripherals interface 218 receives from I/O subsystem 206 includes information from touch-sensitive display 212 or a touch-sensitive surface.

In some embodiments, event monitor 271 sends requests to the peripherals interface 218 at predetermined intervals. In response, peripherals interface 218 transmits event information. In other embodiments, peripherals interface 218 transmits event information only when there is a significant event (e.g., receiving an input above a predetermined noise threshold and/or for more than a predetermined duration).

In some embodiments, event sorter 270 also includes a hit view determination module 272 and/or an active event recognizer determination module 273.

Hit view determination module 272 provides software procedures for determining where a sub-event has taken place within one or more views when touch-sensitive display 212 displays more than one view. Views are made up of controls and other elements that a user can see on the display.

Another aspect of the user interface associated with an application is a set of views, sometimes herein called application views or user interface windows, in which information is displayed and touch-based gestures occur. The application views (of a respective application) in which a touch is detected correspond to programmatic levels within a programmatic or view hierarchy of the application. For example, the lowest level view in which a touch is detected is called the hit view, and the set of events that are recognized as proper inputs is determined based, at least in part, on the hit view of the initial touch that begins a touch-based gesture.

Hit view determination module 272 receives information related to sub events of a touch-based gesture. When an application has multiple views organized in a hierarchy, hit view determination module 272 identifies a hit view as the lowest view in the hierarchy which should handle the sub-event. In most circumstances, the hit view is the lowest level view in which an initiating sub-event occurs (e.g., the first sub-event in the sequence of sub-events that form an event or potential event). Once the hit view is identified by the hit view determination module 272, the hit view typically receives all sub-events related to the same touch or input source for which it was identified as the hit view.

Active event recognizer determination module 273 determines which view or views within a view hierarchy should receive a particular sequence of sub-events. In some embodiments, active event recognizer determination module 273 determines that only the hit view should receive a particular sequence of sub-events. In other embodiments, active event recognizer determination module 273 determines that all views that include the physical location of a sub-event are actively involved views, and therefore determines that all actively involved views should receive a particular sequence of sub-events. In other embodiments, even if touch sub-events were entirely confined to the area associated with one particular view, views higher in the hierarchy would still remain as actively involved views.

Event dispatcher module 274 dispatches the event information to an event recognizer (e.g., event recognizer 280). In embodiments including active event recognizer determination module 273, event dispatcher module 274 delivers the event information to an event recognizer determined by active event recognizer determination module 273. In some embodiments, event dispatcher module 274 stores in an event queue the event information, which is retrieved by a respective event receiver 282.

In some embodiments, operating system 226 includes event sorter 270. Alternatively, application 236-1 includes event sorter 270. In yet other embodiments, event sorter 270 is a stand-alone module, or a part of another module stored in memory 202, such as contact/motion module 230.

In some embodiments, application 236-1 includes a plurality of event handlers 290 and one or more application views 291, each of which includes instructions for handling touch events that occur within a respective view of the application's user interface. Each application view 291 of the application 236-1 includes one or more event recognizers 280. Typically, a respective application view 291 includes a plurality of event recognizers 280. In other embodiments, one or more of event recognizers 280 are part of a separate module, such as a user interface kit (not shown) or a higher level object from which application 236-1 inherits methods and other properties. In some embodiments, a respective event handler 290 includes one or more of: data updater 276, object updater 277, GUI updater 278, and/or event data 279 received from event sorter 270. Event handler 290 utilizes or calls data updater 276, object updater 277, or GUI updater 278 to update the application internal state 292. Alternatively, one or more of the application views 291 include one or more respective event handlers 290. Also, in some embodiments, one or more of data updater 276, object updater 277, and GUI updater 278 are included in a respective application view 291.

A respective event recognizer 280 receives event information (e.g., event data 279) from event sorter 270 and identifies an event from the event information. Event recognizer 280 includes event receiver 282 and event comparator 284. In some embodiments, event recognizer 280 also includes at least a subset of: metadata 283, and event delivery instructions 288 (which include sub-event delivery instructions).

Event receiver 282 receives event information from event sorter 270. The event information includes information about a sub-event, for example, a touch or a touch movement. Depending on the sub-event, the event information also includes additional information, such as location of the sub-event. When the sub-event concerns motion of a touch, the event information also includes speed and direction of the sub-event. In some embodiments, events include rotation of the device from one orientation to another (e.g., from a portrait orientation to a landscape orientation, or vice versa), and the event information includes corresponding information about the current orientation (also called device attitude) of the device.

Event comparator 284 compares the event information to predefined event or sub-event definitions and, based on the comparison, determines an event or sub event, or determines or updates the state of an event or sub-event. In some embodiments, event comparator 284 includes event definitions 286. Event definitions 286 contain definitions of events (e.g., predefined sequences of sub-events), for example, event 1 (287-1), event 2 (287-2), and others. In some embodiments, sub-events in an event (287) include, for example, touch begin, touch end, touch movement, touch cancellation, and multiple touching. In one example, the definition for event 1 (287-1) is a double tap on a displayed object. The double tap, for example, comprises a first touch (touch begin) on the displayed object for a predetermined phase, a first liftoff (touch end) for a predetermined phase, a second touch (touch begin) on the displayed object for a predetermined phase, and a second liftoff (touch end) for a predetermined phase. In another example, the definition for event 2 (287-2) is a dragging on a displayed object. The dragging, for example, comprises a touch (or contact) on the displayed object for a predetermined phase, a movement of the touch across touch-sensitive display 212, and liftoff of the touch (touch end). In some embodiments, the event also includes information for one or more associated event handlers 290.

In some embodiments, event definition 287 includes a definition of an event for a respective user-interface object. In some embodiments, event comparator 284 performs a hit test to determine which user-interface object is associated with a sub-event. For example, in an application view in which three user-interface objects are displayed on touch-sensitive display 212, when a touch is detected on touch-sensitive display 212, event comparator 284 performs a hit test to determine which of the three user-interface objects is associated with the touch (sub-event). If each displayed object is associated with a respective event handler 290, the event comparator uses the result of the hit test to determine which event handler 290 should be activated. For example, event comparator 284 selects an event handler associated with the sub-event and the object triggering the hit test.

In some embodiments, the definition for a respective event (287) also includes delayed actions that delay delivery of the event information until after it has been determined whether the sequence of sub-events does or does not correspond to the event recognizer's event type.

When a respective event recognizer 280 determines that the series of sub-events do not match any of the events in event definitions 286, the respective event recognizer 280 enters an event impossible, event failed, or event ended state, after which it disregards subsequent sub-events of the touch-based gesture. In this situation, other event recognizers, if any, that remain active for the hit view continue to track and process sub-events of an ongoing touch-based gesture.

In some embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280 includes metadata 283 with configurable properties, flags, and/or lists that indicate how the event delivery system should perform sub-event delivery to actively involved event recognizers. In some embodiments, metadata 283 includes configurable properties, flags, and/or lists that indicate how event recognizers interact, or are enabled to interact, with one another. In some embodiments, metadata 283 includes configurable properties, flags, and/or lists that indicate whether sub-events are delivered to varying levels in the view or programmatic hierarchy.

In some embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280 activates event handler 290 associated with an event when one or more particular sub-events of an event are recognized. In some embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280 delivers event information associated with the event to event handler 290. Activating an event handler 290 is distinct from sending (and deferred sending) sub-events to a respective hit view. In some embodiments, event recognizer 280 throws a flag associated with the recognized event, and event handler 290 associated with the flag catches the flag and performs a predefined process.

In some embodiments, event delivery instructions 288 include sub-event delivery instructions that deliver event information about a sub-event without activating an event handler. Instead, the sub-event delivery instructions deliver event information to event handlers associated with the series of sub-events or to actively involved views. Event handlers associated with the series of sub-events or with actively involved views receive the event information and perform a predetermined process.

In some embodiments, data updater 276 creates and updates data used in application 236-1. For example, data updater 276 updates the telephone number used in contacts module 237, or stores a video file used in video player module. In some embodiments, object updater 277 creates and updates objects used in application 236-1. For example, object updater 277 creates a new user-interface object or updates the position of a user-interface object. GUI updater 278 updates the GUI. For example, GUI updater 278 prepares display information and sends it to graphics module 232 for display on a touch-sensitive display.

In some embodiments, event handler(s) 290 includes or has access to data updater 276, object updater 277, and GUI updater 278. In some embodiments, data updater 276, object updater 277, and GUI updater 278 are included in a single module of a respective application 236-1 or application view 291. In other embodiments, they are included in two or more software modules.

It shall be understood that the foregoing discussion regarding event handling of user touches on touch-sensitive displays also applies to other forms of user inputs to operate multifunction devices 200 with input devices, not all of which are initiated on touch screens. For example, mouse movement and mouse button presses, optionally coordinated with single or multiple keyboard presses or holds; contact movements such as taps, drags, scrolls, etc. on touchpads; pen stylus inputs; movement of the device; oral instructions; detected eye movements; biometric inputs; and/or any combination thereof are optionally utilized as inputs corresponding to sub-events which define an event to be recognized.

FIG. 3 illustrates a portable multifunction device 200 having a touch screen 212 in accordance with some embodiments. The touch screen optionally displays one or more graphics within user interface (UI) 300. In this embodiment, as well as others described below, a user is enabled to select one or more of the graphics by making a gesture on the graphics, for example, with one or more fingers 302 (not drawn to scale in the figure) or one or more styluses 303 (not drawn to scale in the figure). In some embodiments, selection of one or more graphics occurs when the user breaks contact with the one or more graphics. In some embodiments, the gesture optionally includes one or more taps, one or more swipes (from left to right, right to left, upward and/or downward), and/or a rolling of a finger (from right to left, left to right, upward and/or downward) that has made contact with device 200. In some implementations or circumstances, inadvertent contact with a graphic does not select the graphic. For example, a swipe gesture that sweeps over an application icon optionally does not select the corresponding application when the gesture corresponding to selection is a tap.

Device 200 also includes one or more physical buttons, such as “home” or menu button 304. As described previously, menu button 304 is used to navigate to any application 236 in a set of applications that is executed on device 200. Alternatively, in some embodiments, the menu button is implemented as a soft key in a GUI displayed on touch screen 212.

In one embodiment, device 200 includes touch screen 212, menu button 304, push button 306 for powering the device on/off and locking the device, volume adjustment button(s) 308, subscriber identity module (SIM) card slot 310, headset jack 312, and docking/charging external port 224. Push button 306 is, optionally, used to turn the power on/off on the device by depressing the button and holding the button in the depressed state for a predefined time interval; to lock the device by depressing the button and releasing the button before the predefined time interval has elapsed; and/or to unlock the device or initiate an unlock process. In an alternative embodiment, device 200 also accepts verbal input for activation or deactivation of some functions through microphone 213. Device 200 also, optionally, includes one or more contact intensity sensors 265 for detecting intensity of contacts on touch screen 212 and/or one or more tactile output generators 267 for generating tactile outputs for a user of device 200.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface in accordance with some embodiments. Device 400 need not be portable. In some embodiments, device 400 is a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a tablet computer, a multimedia player device, a navigation device, an educational device (such as a child's learning toy), a gaming system, or a control device (e.g., a home or industrial controller). Device 400 typically includes one or more processing units (CPUs) 410, one or more network or other communications interfaces 460, memory 470, and one or more communication buses 420 for interconnecting these components. Communication buses 420 optionally include circuitry (sometimes called a chipset) that interconnects and controls communications between system components. Device 400 includes input/output (I/O) interface 430 comprising display 440, which is typically a touch screen display. I/O interface 430 also optionally includes a keyboard and/or mouse (or other pointing device) 450 and touchpad 455, tactile output generator 457 for generating tactile outputs on device 400 (e.g., similar to tactile output generator(s) 267 described above with reference to FIG. 2A), sensors 459 (e.g., optical, acceleration, proximity, touch-sensitive, and/or contact intensity sensors similar to contact intensity sensor(s) 265 described above with reference to FIG. 2A). Memory 470 includes high-speed random access memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, DDR RAM, or other random access solid state memory devices; and optionally includes non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices, optical disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid state storage devices. Memory 470 optionally includes one or more storage devices remotely located from CPU(s) 410. In some embodiments, memory 470 stores programs, modules, and data structures analogous to the programs, modules, and data structures stored in memory 202 of portable multifunction device 200 (FIG. 2A), or a subset thereof. Furthermore, memory 470 optionally stores additional programs, modules, and data structures not present in memory 202 of portable multifunction device 200. For example, memory 470 of device 400 optionally stores drawing module 480, presentation module 482, word processing module 484, website creation module 486, disk authoring module 488, and/or spreadsheet module 490, while memory 202 of portable multifunction device 200 (FIG. 2A) optionally does not store these modules.

Each of the above-identified elements in FIG. 4 is, in some examples, stored in one or more of the previously mentioned memory devices. Each of the above-identified modules corresponds to a set of instructions for performing a function described above. The above-identified modules or programs (e.g., sets of instructions) need not be implemented as separate software programs, procedures, or modules, and thus various subsets of these modules are combined or otherwise rearranged in various embodiments. In some embodiments, memory 470 stores a subset of the modules and data structures identified above. Furthermore, memory 470 stores additional modules and data structures not described above.

Attention is now directed towards embodiments of user interfaces that can be implemented on, for example, portable multifunction device 200.

FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary user interface for a menu of applications on portable multifunction device 200 in accordance with some embodiments. Similar user interfaces are implemented on device 400. In some embodiments, user interface 500 includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

Signal strength indicator(s) 502 for wireless communication(s), such as cellular and Wi-Fi signals;

-   -   Time 504;     -   Bluetooth indicator 505;     -   Battery status indicator 506;     -   Tray 508 with icons for frequently used applications, such as:     -   Icon 516 for telephone module 238, labeled “Phone,” which         optionally includes an indicator 514 of the number of missed         calls or voicemail messages;     -   Icon 518 for e-mail client module 240, labeled “Mail,” which         optionally includes an indicator 510 of the number of unread         e-mails;     -   Icon 520 for browser module 247, labeled “Browser;” and     -   Icon 522 for video and music player module 252, also referred to         as iPod (trademark of Apple Inc.) module 252, labeled “iPod;”         and     -   Icons for other applications, such as:     -   Icon 524 for IM module 241, labeled “Messages;”     -   Icon 526 for calendar module 248, labeled “Calendar;”     -   Icon 528 for image management module 244, labeled “Photos;”     -   Icon 530 for camera module 243, labeled “Camera;”     -   Icon 532 for online video module 255, labeled “Online Video;”     -   Icon 534 for stocks widget 249-2, labeled “Stocks;”     -   Icon 536 for map module 254, labeled “Maps;”     -   Icon 538 for weather widget 249-1, labeled “Weather;”     -   Icon 540 for alarm clock widget 249-4, labeled “Clock;”     -   Icon 542 for workout support module 242, labeled “Workout         Support;”     -   Icon 544 for notes module 253, labeled “Notes;” and     -   Icon 546 for a settings application or module, labeled         “Settings,” which provides access to settings for device 200 and         its various applications 236.

It should be noted that the icon labels illustrated in FIG. 5A are merely exemplary. For example, icon 522 for video and music player module 252 is optionally labeled “Music” or “Music Player.” Other labels are, optionally, used for various application icons. In some embodiments, a label for a respective application icon includes a name of an application corresponding to the respective application icon. In some embodiments, a label for a particular application icon is distinct from a name of an application corresponding to the particular application icon.

FIG. 5B illustrates an exemplary user interface on a device (e.g., device 400, FIG. 4) with a touch-sensitive surface 551 (e.g., a tablet or touchpad 455, FIG. 4) that is separate from the display 550 (e.g., touch screen display 212). Device 400 also, optionally, includes one or more contact intensity sensors (e.g., one or more of sensors 457) for detecting intensity of contacts on touch-sensitive surface 551 and/or one or more tactile output generators 459 for generating tactile outputs for a user of device 400.

Although some of the examples which follow will be given with reference to inputs on touch screen display 212 (where the touch-sensitive surface and the display are combined), in some embodiments, the device detects inputs on a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from the display, as shown in FIG. 5B. In some embodiments, the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., 551 in FIG. 5B) has a primary axis (e.g., 552 in FIG. 5B) that corresponds to a primary axis (e.g., 553 in FIG. 5B) on the display (e.g., 550). In accordance with these embodiments, the device detects contacts (e.g., 560 and 562 in FIG. 5B) with the touch-sensitive surface 551 at locations that correspond to respective locations on the display (e.g., in FIG. 5B, 560 corresponds to 568 and 562 corresponds to 570). In this way, user inputs (e.g., contacts 560 and 562, and movements thereof) detected by the device on the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., 551 in FIG. 5B) are used by the device to manipulate the user interface on the display (e.g., 550 in FIG. 5B) of the multifunction device when the touch-sensitive surface is separate from the display. It should be understood that similar methods are, optionally, used for other user interfaces described herein.

Additionally, while the following examples are given primarily with reference to finger inputs (e.g., finger contacts, finger tap gestures, finger swipe gestures), it should be understood that, in some embodiments, one or more of the finger inputs are replaced with input from another input device (e.g., a mouse-based input or stylus input). For example, a swipe gesture is, optionally, replaced with a mouse click (e.g., instead of a contact) followed by movement of the cursor along the path of the swipe (e.g., instead of movement of the contact). As another example, a tap gesture is, optionally, replaced with a mouse click while the cursor is located over the location of the tap gesture (e.g., instead of detection of the contact followed by ceasing to detect the contact). Similarly, when multiple user inputs are simultaneously detected, it should be understood that multiple computer mice are, optionally, used simultaneously, or a mouse and finger contacts are, optionally, used simultaneously.

FIG. 6A illustrates exemplary personal electronic device 600. Device 600 includes body 602. In some embodiments, device 600 includes some or all of the features described with respect to devices 200 and 400 (e.g., FIGS. 2A-4). In some embodiments, device 600 has touch-sensitive display screen 604, hereafter touch screen 604. Alternatively, or in addition to touch screen 604, device 600 has a display and a touch-sensitive surface. As with devices 200 and 400, in some embodiments, touch screen 604 (or the touch-sensitive surface) has one or more intensity sensors for detecting intensity of contacts (e.g., touches) being applied. The one or more intensity sensors of touch screen 604 (or the touch-sensitive surface) provide output data that represents the intensity of touches. The user interface of device 600 responds to touches based on their intensity, meaning that touches of different intensities can invoke different user interface operations on device 600.

Techniques for detecting and processing touch intensity are found, for example, in related applications: International Patent Application Serial No. PCT/US2013/040061, titled “Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Displaying User Interface Objects Corresponding to an Application,” filed May 8, 2013, and International Patent Application Serial No. PCT/US2013/069483, titled “Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Transitioning Between Touch Input to Display Output Relationships,” filed Nov. 11, 2013, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

In some embodiments, device 600 has one or more input mechanisms 606 and 608. Input mechanisms 606 and 608, if included, are physical. Examples of physical input mechanisms include push buttons and rotatable mechanisms. In some embodiments, device 600 has one or more attachment mechanisms. Such attachment mechanisms, if included, can permit attachment of device 600 with, for example, hats, eyewear, earrings, necklaces, shirts, jackets, bracelets, watch straps, chains, trousers, belts, shoes, purses, backpacks, and so forth. These attachment mechanisms permit device 600 to be worn by a user.

FIG. 6B depicts exemplary personal electronic device 600. In some embodiments, device 600 includes some or all of the components described with respect to FIGS. 2A, 2B, and 4. Device 600 has bus 612 that operatively couples I/O section 614 with one or more computer processors 616 and memory 618. I/O section 614 is connected to display 604, which can have touch-sensitive component 622 and, optionally, touch-intensity sensitive component 624. In addition, I/O section 614 is connected with communication unit 630 for receiving application and operating system data, using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, near field communication (NFC), cellular, and/or other wireless communication techniques. Device 600 includes input mechanisms 606 and/or 608. Input mechanism 606 is a rotatable input device or a depressible and rotatable input device, for example. Input mechanism 608 is a button, in some examples.

Input mechanism 608 is a microphone, in some examples. Personal electronic device 600 includes, for example, various sensors, such as GPS sensor 632, accelerometer 634, directional sensor 640 (e.g., compass), gyroscope 636, motion sensor 638, and/or a combination thereof, all of which are operatively connected to I/O section 614.

Memory 618 of personal electronic device 600 is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, for storing computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by one or more computer processors 616, for example, cause the computer processors to perform the techniques and processes described below. The computer-executable instructions, for example, are also stored and/or transported within any non-transitory computer-readable storage medium for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, such as a computer-based system, processor-containing system, or other system that can fetch the instructions from the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device and execute the instructions. Personal electronic device 600 is not limited to the components and configuration of FIG. 6B, but can include other or additional components in multiple configurations.

As used here, the term “affordance” refers to a user-interactive graphical user interface object that is, for example, displayed on the display screen of devices 200, 400, 600, and/or 900 (FIGS. 2A-2B, 4, 6, 9, and 13). For example, an image (e.g., icon), a button, and text (e.g., hyperlink) each constitutes an affordance.

As used herein, the term “focus selector” refers to an input element that indicates a current part of a user interface with which a user is interacting. In some implementations that include a cursor or other location marker, the cursor acts as a “focus selector” so that when an input (e.g., a press input) is detected on a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., touchpad 455 in FIG. 4 or touch-sensitive surface 551 in FIG. 5B) while the cursor is over a particular user interface element (e.g., a button, window, slider or other user interface element), the particular user interface element is adjusted in accordance with the detected input. In some implementations that include a touch screen display (e.g., touch-sensitive display system 212 in FIG. 2A or touch screen 212 in FIG. 5A) that enables direct interaction with user interface elements on the touch screen display, a detected contact on the touch screen acts as a “focus selector” so that when an input (e.g., a press input by the contact) is detected on the touch screen display at a location of a particular user interface element (e.g., a button, window, slider, or other user interface element), the particular user interface element is adjusted in accordance with the detected input. In some implementations, focus is moved from one region of a user interface to another region of the user interface without corresponding movement of a cursor or movement of a contact on a touch screen display (e.g., by using a tab key or arrow keys to move focus from one button to another button); in these implementations, the focus selector moves in accordance with movement of focus between different regions of the user interface. Without regard to the specific form taken by the focus selector, the focus selector is generally the user interface element (or contact on a touch screen display) that is controlled by the user so as to communicate the user's intended interaction with the user interface (e.g., by indicating, to the device, the element of the user interface with which the user is intending to interact). For example, the location of a focus selector (e.g., a cursor, a contact, or a selection box) over a respective button while a press input is detected on the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., a touchpad or touch screen) will indicate that the user is intending to activate the respective button (as opposed to other user interface elements shown on a display of the device).

As used in the specification and claims, the term “characteristic intensity” of a contact refers to a characteristic of the contact based on one or more intensities of the contact. In some embodiments, the characteristic intensity is based on multiple intensity samples. The characteristic intensity is, optionally, based on a predefined number of intensity samples, or a set of intensity samples collected during a predetermined time period (e.g., 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10 seconds) relative to a predefined event (e.g., after detecting the contact, prior to detecting liftoff of the contact, before or after detecting a start of movement of the contact, prior to detecting an end of the contact, before or after detecting an increase in intensity of the contact, and/or before or after detecting a decrease in intensity of the contact). A characteristic intensity of a contact is, optionally based on one or more of: a maximum value of the intensities of the contact, a mean value of the intensities of the contact, an average value of the intensities of the contact, a top 10 percentile value of the intensities of the contact, a value at the half maximum of the intensities of the contact, a value at the 90 percent maximum of the intensities of the contact, or the like. In some embodiments, the duration of the contact is used in determining the characteristic intensity (e.g., when the characteristic intensity is an average of the intensity of the contact over time). In some embodiments, the characteristic intensity is compared to a set of one or more intensity thresholds to determine whether an operation has been performed by a user. For example, the set of one or more intensity thresholds includes a first intensity threshold and a second intensity threshold. In this example, a contact with a characteristic intensity that does not exceed the first threshold results in a first operation, a contact with a characteristic intensity that exceeds the first intensity threshold and does not exceed the second intensity threshold results in a second operation, and a contact with a characteristic intensity that exceeds the second threshold results in a third operation. In some embodiments, a comparison between the characteristic intensity and one or more thresholds is used to determine whether or not to perform one or more operations (e.g., whether to perform a respective operation or forgo performing the respective operation) rather than being used to determine whether to perform a first operation or a second operation.

In some embodiments, a portion of a gesture is identified for purposes of determining a characteristic intensity. For example, a touch-sensitive surface receives a continuous swipe contact transitioning from a start location and reaching an end location, at which point the intensity of the contact increases. In this example, the characteristic intensity of the contact at the end location is based on only a portion of the continuous swipe contact, and not the entire swipe contact (e.g., only the portion of the swipe contact at the end location). In some embodiments, a smoothing algorithm is applied to the intensities of the swipe contact prior to determining the characteristic intensity of the contact. For example, the smoothing algorithm optionally includes one or more of: an unweighted sliding-average smoothing algorithm, a triangular smoothing algorithm, a median filter smoothing algorithm, and/or an exponential smoothing algorithm. In some circumstances, these smoothing algorithms eliminate narrow spikes or dips in the intensities of the swipe contact for purposes of determining a characteristic intensity.

The intensity of a contact on the touch-sensitive surface is characterized relative to one or more intensity thresholds, such as a contact-detection intensity threshold, a light press intensity threshold, a deep press intensity threshold, and/or one or more other intensity thresholds. In some embodiments, the light press intensity threshold corresponds to an intensity at which the device will perform operations typically associated with clicking a button of a physical mouse or a trackpad. In some embodiments, the deep press intensity threshold corresponds to an intensity at which the device will perform operations that are different from operations typically associated with clicking a button of a physical mouse or a trackpad. In some embodiments, when a contact is detected with a characteristic intensity below the light press intensity threshold (e.g., and above a nominal contact-detection intensity threshold below which the contact is no longer detected), the device will move a focus selector in accordance with movement of the contact on the touch-sensitive surface without performing an operation associated with the light press intensity threshold or the deep press intensity threshold. Generally, unless otherwise stated, these intensity thresholds are consistent between different sets of user interface figures.

An increase of characteristic intensity of the contact from an intensity below the light press intensity threshold to an intensity between the light press intensity threshold and the deep press intensity threshold is sometimes referred to as a “light press” input. An increase of characteristic intensity of the contact from an intensity below the deep press intensity threshold to an intensity above the deep press intensity threshold is sometimes referred to as a “deep press” input. An increase of characteristic intensity of the contact from an intensity below the contact-detection intensity threshold to an intensity between the contact-detection intensity threshold and the light press intensity threshold is sometimes referred to as detecting the contact on the touch-surface. A decrease of characteristic intensity of the contact from an intensity above the contact-detection intensity threshold to an intensity below the contact-detection intensity threshold is sometimes referred to as detecting liftoff of the contact from the touch-surface. In some embodiments, the contact-detection intensity threshold is zero. In some embodiments, the contact-detection intensity threshold is greater than zero.

In some embodiments described herein, one or more operations are performed in response to detecting a gesture that includes a respective press input or in response to detecting the respective press input performed with a respective contact (or a plurality of contacts), where the respective press input is detected based at least in part on detecting an increase in intensity of the contact (or plurality of contacts) above a press-input intensity threshold. In some embodiments, the respective operation is performed in response to detecting the increase in intensity of the respective contact above the press-input intensity threshold (e.g., a “down stroke” of the respective press input). In some embodiments, the press input includes an increase in intensity of the respective contact above the press-input intensity threshold and a subsequent decrease in intensity of the contact below the press-input intensity threshold, and the respective operation is performed in response to detecting the subsequent decrease in intensity of the respective contact below the press-input threshold (e.g., an “up stroke” of the respective press input).

In some embodiments, the device employs intensity hysteresis to avoid accidental inputs sometimes termed “jitter,” where the device defines or selects a hysteresis intensity threshold with a predefined relationship to the press-input intensity threshold (e.g., the hysteresis intensity threshold is X intensity units lower than the press-input intensity threshold or the hysteresis intensity threshold is 75%, 90%, or some reasonable proportion of the press-input intensity threshold). Thus, in some embodiments, the press input includes an increase in intensity of the respective contact above the press-input intensity threshold and a subsequent decrease in intensity of the contact below the hysteresis intensity threshold that corresponds to the press-input intensity threshold, and the respective operation is performed in response to detecting the subsequent decrease in intensity of the respective contact below the hysteresis intensity threshold (e.g., an “up stroke” of the respective press input). Similarly, in some embodiments, the press input is detected only when the device detects an increase in intensity of the contact from an intensity at or below the hysteresis intensity threshold to an intensity at or above the press-input intensity threshold and, optionally, a subsequent decrease in intensity of the contact to an intensity at or below the hysteresis intensity, and the respective operation is performed in response to detecting the press input (e.g., the increase in intensity of the contact or the decrease in intensity of the contact, depending on the circumstances).

For ease of explanation, the descriptions of operations performed in response to a press input associated with a press-input intensity threshold or in response to a gesture including the press input are, optionally, triggered in response to detecting either: an increase in intensity of a contact above the press-input intensity threshold, an increase in intensity of a contact from an intensity below the hysteresis intensity threshold to an intensity above the press-input intensity threshold, a decrease in intensity of the contact below the press-input intensity threshold, and/or a decrease in intensity of the contact below the hysteresis intensity threshold corresponding to the press-input intensity threshold. Additionally, in examples where an operation is described as being performed in response to detecting a decrease in intensity of a contact below the press-input intensity threshold, the operation is, optionally, performed in response to detecting a decrease in intensity of the contact below a hysteresis intensity threshold corresponding to, and lower than, the press-input intensity threshold.

3. Digital Assistant System

FIG. 7A illustrates a block diagram of digital assistant system 700 in accordance with various examples. In some examples, digital assistant system 700 is implemented on a standalone computer system. In some examples, digital assistant system 700 is distributed across multiple computers. In some examples, some of the modules and functions of the digital assistant are divided into a server portion and a client portion, where the client portion resides on one or more user devices (e.g., devices 104, 122, 200, 400, 600, or 900) and communicates with the server portion (e.g., server system 108) through one or more networks, e.g., as shown in FIG. 1. In some examples, digital assistant system 700 is an implementation of server system 108 (and/or DA server 106) shown in FIG. 1. It should be noted that digital assistant system 700 is only one example of a digital assistant system, and that digital assistant system 700 can have more or fewer components than shown, can combine two or more components, or can have a different configuration or arrangement of the components. The various components shown in FIG. 7A are implemented in hardware, software instructions for execution by one or more processors, firmware, including one or more signal processing and/or application specific integrated circuits, or a combination thereof.

Digital assistant system 700 includes memory 702, one or more processors 704, input/output (I/O) interface 706, and network communications interface 708. These components can communicate with one another over one or more communication buses or signal lines 710.

In some examples, memory 702 includes a non-transitory computer-readable medium, such as high-speed random access memory and/or a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium (e.g., one or more magnetic disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid-state memory devices).

In some examples, I/O interface 706 couples input/output devices 716 of digital assistant system 700, such as displays, keyboards, touch screens, and microphones, to user interface module 722. I/O interface 706, in conjunction with user interface module 722, receives user inputs (e.g., voice input, keyboard inputs, touch inputs, etc.) and processes them accordingly. In some examples, e.g., when the digital assistant is implemented on a standalone user device, digital assistant system 700 includes any of the components and I/O communication interfaces described with respect to devices 200, 400, 600, or 900 in FIGS. 2A, 4, 6A-B, 9A-9B, and 13, respectively. In some examples, digital assistant system 700 represents the server portion of a digital assistant implementation, and can interact with the user through a client-side portion residing on a user device (e.g., devices 104, 200, 400, 600, or 900).

In some examples, the network communications interface 708 includes wired communication port(s) 712 and/or wireless transmission and reception circuitry 714. The wired communication port(s) receives and send communication signals via one or more wired interfaces, e.g., Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, etc. The wireless circuitry 714 receives and sends RF signals and/or optical signals from/to communications networks and other communications devices. The wireless communications use any of a plurality of communications standards, protocols, and technologies, such as GSM, EDGE, CDMA, TDMA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, VoIP, Wi-MAX, or any other suitable communication protocol. Network communications interface 708 enables communication between digital assistant system 700 with networks, such as the Internet, an intranet, and/or a wireless network, such as a cellular telephone network, a wireless local area network (LAN), and/or a metropolitan area network (MAN), and other devices.

In some examples, memory 702, or the computer-readable storage media of memory 702, stores programs, modules, instructions, and data structures including all or a subset of: operating system 718, communications module 720, user interface module 722, one or more applications 724, and digital assistant module 726. In particular, memory 702, or the computer-readable storage media of memory 702, stores instructions for performing the processes described below. One or more processors 704 execute these programs, modules, and instructions, and reads/writes from/to the data structures.

Operating system 718 (e.g., Darwin, RTXC, LINUX, UNIX, iOS, OS X, WINDOWS, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks) includes various software components and/or drivers for controlling and managing general system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage device control, power management, etc.) and facilitates communications between various hardware, firmware, and software components.

Communications module 720 facilitates communications between digital assistant system 700 with other devices over network communications interface 708. For example, communications module 720 communicates with RF circuitry 208 of electronic devices such as devices 200, 400, and 600 shown in FIG. 2A, 4, 6A-B, respectively. Communications module 720 also includes various components for handling data received by wireless circuitry 714 and/or wired communications port 712.

User interface module 722 receives commands and/or inputs from a user via I/O interface 706 (e.g., from a keyboard, touch screen, pointing device, controller, and/or microphone), and generate user interface objects on a display. User interface module 722 also prepares and delivers outputs (e.g., speech, sound, animation, text, icons, vibrations, haptic feedback, light, etc.) to the user via the I/O interface 706 (e.g., through displays, audio channels, speakers, touch-pads, etc.).

Applications 724 include programs and/or modules that are configured to be executed by one or more processors 704. For example, if the digital assistant system is implemented on a standalone user device, applications 724 include user applications, such as games, a calendar application, a navigation application, or an email application. If digital assistant system 700 is implemented on a server, applications 724 include resource management applications, diagnostic applications, or scheduling applications, for example.

Memory 702 also stores digital assistant module 726 (or the server portion of a digital assistant). In some examples, digital assistant module 726 includes the following sub-modules, or a subset or superset thereof: input/output processing module 728, speech-to-text (STT) processing module 730, natural language processing module 732, dialogue flow processing module 734, task flow processing module 736, service processing module 738, and speech synthesis module 740. Each of these modules has access to one or more of the following systems or data and models of the digital assistant module 726, or a subset or superset thereof: ontology 760, vocabulary index 744, user data 748, task flow models 754, service models 756, and ASR systems.

In some examples, using the processing modules, data, and models implemented in digital assistant module 726, the digital assistant can perform at least some of the following: converting speech input into text; identifying a user's intent expressed in a natural language input received from the user; actively eliciting and obtaining information needed to fully infer the user's intent (e.g., by disambiguating words, games, intentions, etc.); determining the task flow for fulfilling the inferred intent; and executing the task flow to fulfill the inferred intent.

In some examples, as shown in FIG. 7B, I/O processing module 728 interacts with the user through I/O devices 716 in FIG. 7A or with a user device (e.g., devices 104, 200, 400, or 600) through network communications interface 708 in FIG. 7A to obtain user input (e.g., a speech input) and to provide responses (e.g., as speech outputs) to the user input. I/O processing module 728 optionally obtains contextual information associated with the user input from the user device, along with or shortly after the receipt of the user input. The contextual information includes user-specific data, vocabulary, and/or preferences relevant to the user input. In some examples, the contextual information also includes software and hardware states of the user device at the time the user request is received, and/or information related to the surrounding environment of the user at the time that the user request was received. In some examples, I/O processing module 728 also sends follow-up questions to, and receive answers from, the user regarding the user request. When a user request is received by I/O processing module 728 and the user request includes speech input, I/O processing module 728 forwards the speech input to STT processing module 730 (or speech recognizer) for speech-to-text conversions.

STT processing module 730 includes one or more ASR systems. The one or more ASR systems can process the speech input that is received through I/O processing module 728 to produce a recognition result. Each ASR system includes a front-end speech pre-processor. The front-end speech pre-processor extracts representative features from the speech input. For example, the front-end speech pre-processor performs a Fourier transform on the speech input to extract spectral features that characterize the speech input as a sequence of representative multi-dimensional vectors. Further, each ASR system includes one or more speech recognition models (e.g., acoustic models and/or language models) and implements one or more speech recognition engines. Examples of speech recognition models include Hidden Markov Models, Gaussian-Mixture Models, Deep Neural Network Models, n-gram language models, and other statistical models. Examples of speech recognition engines include the dynamic time warping based engines and weighted finite-state transducers (WFST) based engines. The one or more speech recognition models and the one or more speech recognition engines are used to process the extracted representative features of the front-end speech pre-processor to produce intermediate recognitions results (e.g., phonemes, phonemic strings, and sub-words), and ultimately, text recognition results (e.g., words, word strings, or sequence of tokens). In some examples, the speech input is processed at least partially by a third-party service or on the user's device (e.g., device 104, 200, 400, or 600) to produce the recognition result. Once STT processing module 730 produces recognition results containing a text string (e.g., words, or sequence of words, or sequence of tokens), the recognition result is passed to natural language processing module 732 for intent deduction. In some examples, STT processing module 730 produces multiple candidate text representations of the speech input. Each candidate text representation is a sequence of words or tokens corresponding to the speech input. In some examples, each candidate text representation is associated with a speech recognition confidence score. Based on the speech recognition confidence scores, STT processing module 730 ranks the candidate text representations and provides the n-best (e.g., n highest ranked) candidate text representation(s) to natural language processing module 732 for intent deduction, where n is a predetermined integer greater than zero. For example, in one example, only the highest ranked (n=1) candidate text representation is passed to natural language processing module 732 for intent deduction. In another example, the five highest ranked (n=5) candidate text representations are passed to natural language processing module 732 for intent deduction.

More details on the speech-to-text processing are described in U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 13/236,942 for “Consolidating Speech Recognition Results,” filed on Sep. 20, 2011, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

In some examples, STT processing module 730 includes and/or accesses a vocabulary of recognizable words via phonetic alphabet conversion module 731. Each vocabulary word is associated with one or more candidate pronunciations of the word represented in a speech recognition phonetic alphabet. In particular, the vocabulary of recognizable words includes a word that is associated with a plurality of candidate pronunciations. For example, the vocabulary includes the word “tomato” that is associated with the candidate pronunciations of /

/ and /

/. Further, vocabulary words are associated with custom candidate pronunciations that are based on previous speech inputs from the user. Such custom candidate pronunciations are stored in STT processing module 730 and are associated with a particular user via the user's profile on the device. In some examples, the candidate pronunciations for words are determined based on the spelling of the word and one or more linguistic and/or phonetic rules. In some examples, the candidate pronunciations are manually generated, e.g., based on known canonical pronunciations.

In some examples, the candidate pronunciations are ranked based on the commonness of the candidate pronunciation. For example, the candidate pronunciation /

/ is ranked higher than /

/, because the former is a more commonly used pronunciation (e.g., among all users, for users in a particular geographical region, or for any other appropriate subset of users). In some examples, candidate pronunciations are ranked based on whether the candidate pronunciation is a custom candidate pronunciation associated with the user. For example, custom candidate pronunciations are ranked higher than canonical candidate pronunciations. This can be useful for recognizing proper nouns having a unique pronunciation that deviates from canonical pronunciation. In some examples, candidate pronunciations are associated with one or more speech characteristics, such as geographic origin, nationality, or ethnicity. For example, the candidate pronunciation /

/ is associated with the United States, whereas the candidate pronunciation /

/ is associated with Great Britain. Further, the rank of the candidate pronunciation is based on one or more characteristics (e.g., geographic origin, nationality, ethnicity, etc.) of the user stored in the user's profile on the device. For example, it can be determined from the user's profile that the user is associated with the United States. Based on the user being associated with the United States, the candidate pronunciation /

/ (associated with the United States) is ranked higher than the candidate pronunciation /

/ (associated with Great Britain). In some examples, one of the ranked candidate pronunciations is selected as a predicted pronunciation (e.g., the most likely pronunciation).

When a speech input is received, STT processing module 730 is used to determine the phonemes corresponding to the speech input (e.g., using an acoustic model), and then attempt to determine words that match the phonemes (e.g., using a language model). For example, if STT processing module 730 first identifies the sequence of phonemes /

/ corresponding to a portion of the speech input, it can then determine, based on vocabulary index 744, that this sequence corresponds to the word “tomato.”

In some examples, STT processing module 730 uses approximate matching techniques to determine words in an utterance. Thus, for example, the STT processing module 730 determines that the sequence of phonemes /

/ corresponds to the word “tomato,” even if that particular sequence of phonemes is not one of the candidate sequence of phonemes for that word.

Natural language processing module 732 (“natural language processor”) of the digital assistant takes the n-best candidate text representation(s) (“word sequence(s)” or “token sequence(s)”) generated by STT processing module 730, and attempts to associate each of the candidate text representations with one or more “actionable intents” recognized by the digital assistant. An “actionable intent” (or “user intent”) represents a task that can be performed by the digital assistant, and can have an associated task flow implemented in task flow models 754. The associated task flow is a series of programmed actions and steps that the digital assistant takes in order to perform the task. The scope of a digital assistant's capabilities is dependent on the number and variety of task flows that have been implemented and stored in task flow models 754, or in other words, on the number and variety of “actionable intents” that the digital assistant recognizes. The effectiveness of the digital assistant, however, also dependents on the assistant's ability to infer the correct “actionable intent(s)” from the user request expressed in natural language.

In some examples, in addition to the sequence of words or tokens obtained from STT processing module 730, natural language processing module 732 also receives contextual information associated with the user request, e.g., from I/O processing module 728. The natural language processing module 732 optionally uses the contextual information to clarify, supplement, and/or further define the information contained in the candidate text representations received from STT processing module 730. The contextual information includes, for example, user preferences, hardware, and/or software states of the user device, sensor information collected before, during, or shortly after the user request, prior interactions (e.g., dialogue) between the digital assistant and the user, and the like. As described herein, contextual information is, in some examples, dynamic, and changes with time, location, content of the dialogue, and other factors.

In some examples, the natural language processing is based on, e.g., ontology 760. Ontology 760 is a hierarchical structure containing many nodes, each node representing either an “actionable intent” or a “property” relevant to one or more of the “actionable intents” or other “properties.” As noted above, an “actionable intent” represents a task that the digital assistant is capable of performing, i.e., it is “actionable” or can be acted on. A “property” represents a parameter associated with an actionable intent or a sub-aspect of another property. A linkage between an actionable intent node and a property node in ontology 760 defines how a parameter represented by the property node pertains to the task represented by the actionable intent node.

In some examples, ontology 760 is made up of actionable intent nodes and property nodes. Within ontology 760, each actionable intent node is linked to one or more property nodes either directly or through one or more intermediate property nodes. Similarly, each property node is linked to one or more actionable intent nodes either directly or through one or more intermediate property nodes. For example, as shown in FIG. 7C, ontology 760 includes a “restaurant reservation” node (i.e., an actionable intent node). Property nodes “restaurant,” “date/time” (for the reservation), and “party size” are each directly linked to the actionable intent node (i.e., the “restaurant reservation” node).

In addition, property nodes “cuisine,” “price range,” “phone number,” and “location” are sub-nodes of the property node “restaurant,” and are each linked to the “restaurant reservation” node (i.e., the actionable intent node) through the intermediate property node “restaurant.” For another example, as shown in FIG. 7C, ontology 760 also includes a “set reminder” node (i.e., another actionable intent node). Property nodes “date/time” (for setting the reminder) and “subject” (for the reminder) are each linked to the “set reminder” node. Since the property “date/time” is relevant to both the task of making a restaurant reservation and the task of setting a reminder, the property node “date/time” is linked to both the “restaurant reservation” node and the “set reminder” node in ontology 760.

An actionable intent node, along with its linked concept nodes, is described as a “domain.” In the present discussion, each domain is associated with a respective actionable intent, and refers to the group of nodes (and the relationships there between) associated with the particular actionable intent. For example, ontology 760 shown in FIG. 7C includes an example of restaurant reservation domain 762 and an example of reminder domain 764 within ontology 760. The restaurant reservation domain includes the actionable intent node “restaurant reservation,” property nodes “restaurant,” “date/time,” and “party size,” and sub-property nodes “cuisine,” “price range,” “phone number,” and “location.” Reminder domain 764 includes the actionable intent node “set reminder,” and property nodes “subject” and “date/time.” In some examples, ontology 760 is made up of many domains. Each domain shares one or more property nodes with one or more other domains. For example, the “date/time” property node is associated with many different domains (e.g., a scheduling domain, a travel reservation domain, a movie ticket domain, etc.), in addition to restaurant reservation domain 762 and reminder domain 764.

While FIG. 7C illustrates two example domains within ontology 760, other domains include, for example, “find a movie,” “initiate a phone call,” “find directions,” “schedule a meeting,” “send a message,” and “provide an answer to a question,” “read a list,” “providing navigation instructions,” “provide instructions for a task” and so on. A “send a message” domain is associated with a “send a message” actionable intent node, and further includes property nodes such as “recipient(s),” “message type,” and “message body.” The property node “recipient” is further defined, for example, by the sub-property nodes such as “recipient name” and “message address.”

In some examples, ontology 760 includes all the domains (and hence actionable intents) that the digital assistant is capable of understanding and acting upon. In some examples, ontology 760 is modified, such as by adding or removing entire domains or nodes, or by modifying relationships between the nodes within the ontology 760.

In some examples, nodes associated with multiple related actionable intents are clustered under a “super domain” in ontology 760. For example, a “travel” super-domain includes a cluster of property nodes and actionable intent nodes related to travel. The actionable intent nodes related to travel includes “airline reservation,” “hotel reservation,” “car rental,” “get directions,” “find points of interest,” and so on. The actionable intent nodes under the same super domain (e.g., the “travel” super domain) have many property nodes in common. For example, the actionable intent nodes for “airline reservation,” “hotel reservation,” “car rental,” “get directions,” and “find points of interest” share one or more of the property nodes “start location,” “destination,” “departure date/time,” “arrival date/time,” and “party size.”

In some examples, each node in ontology 760 is associated with a set of words and/or phrases that are relevant to the property or actionable intent represented by the node. The respective set of words and/or phrases associated with each node are the so-called “vocabulary” associated with the node. The respective set of words and/or phrases associated with each node are stored in vocabulary index 744 in association with the property or actionable intent represented by the node. For example, returning to FIG. 7B, the vocabulary associated with the node for the property of “restaurant” includes words such as “food,” “drinks,” “cuisine,” “hungry,” “eat,” “pizza,” “fast food,” “meal,” and so on. For another example, the vocabulary associated with the node for the actionable intent of “initiate a phone call” includes words and phrases such as “call,” “phone,” “dial,” “ring,” “call this number,” “make a call to,” and so on. The vocabulary index 744 optionally includes words and phrases in different languages.

Natural language processing module 732 receives the candidate text representations (e.g., text string(s) or token sequence(s)) from STT processing module 730, and for each candidate representation, determines what nodes are implicated by the words in the candidate text representation. In some examples, if a word or phrase in the candidate text representation is found to be associated with one or more nodes in ontology 760 (via vocabulary index 744), the word or phrase “triggers” or “activates” those nodes. Based on the quantity and/or relative importance of the activated nodes, natural language processing module 732 selects one of the actionable intents as the task that the user intended the digital assistant to perform. In some examples, the domain that has the most “triggered” nodes is selected. In some examples, the domain having the highest confidence value (e.g., based on the relative importance of its various triggered nodes) is selected. In some examples, the domain is selected based on a combination of the number and the importance of the triggered nodes. In some examples, additional factors are considered in selecting the node as well, such as whether the digital assistant has previously correctly interpreted a similar request from a user.

User data 748 includes user-specific information, such as user-specific vocabulary, user preferences, user address, user's default and secondary languages, user's contact list, and other short-term or long-term information for each user. In some examples, natural language processing module 732 uses the user-specific information to supplement the information contained in the user input to further define the user intent. For example, for a user request “invite my friends to my birthday party,” natural language processing module 732 is able to access user data 748 to determine who the “friends” are and when and where the “birthday party” would be held, rather than requiring the user to provide such information explicitly in his/her request.

It should be recognized that in some examples, natural language processing module 732 is implemented using one or more machine learning mechanisms (e.g., neural networks). In particular, the one or more machine learning mechanisms are configured to receive a candidate text representation and contextual information associated with the candidate text representation. Based on the candidate text representation and the associated contextual information, the one or more machine learning mechanism are configured to determine intent confidence scores over a set of candidate actionable intents. Natural language processing module 732 can select one or more candidate actionable intents from the set of candidate actionable intents based on the determined intent confidence scores. In some examples, an ontology (e.g., ontology 760) is also used to select the one or more candidate actionable intents from the set of candidate actionable intents.

Other details of searching an ontology based on a token string is described in U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 12/341,743 for “Method and Apparatus for Searching Using An Active Ontology,” filed Dec. 22, 2008, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

In some examples, once natural language processing module 732 identifies an actionable intent (or domain) based on the user request, natural language processing module 732 generates a structured query to represent the identified actionable intent. In some examples, the structured query includes parameters for one or more nodes within the domain for the actionable intent, and at least some of the parameters are populated with the specific information and requirements specified in the user request. For example, the user says “Make me a dinner reservation at a sushi place at 7.” In this case, natural language processing module 732 is able to correctly identify the actionable intent to be “restaurant reservation” based on the user input. According to the ontology, a structured query for a “restaurant reservation” domain includes parameters such as {Cuisine}, {Time}, {Date}, {Party Size}, and the like. In some examples, based on the speech input and the text derived from the speech input using STT processing module 730, natural language processing module 732 generates a partial structured query for the restaurant reservation domain, where the partial structured query includes the parameters {Cuisine=“Sushi”} and {Time=“7 pm”}. However, in this example, the user's utterance contains insufficient information to complete the structured query associated with the domain. Therefore, other necessary parameters such as {Party Size} and {Date} is not specified in the structured query based on the information currently available. In some examples, natural language processing module 732 populates some parameters of the structured query with received contextual information. For example, in some examples, if the user requested a sushi restaurant “near me,” natural language processing module 732 populates a {location} parameter in the structured query with GPS coordinates from the user device.

In some examples, natural language processing module 732 identifies multiple candidate actionable intents for each candidate text representation received from STT processing module 730. Further, in some examples, a respective structured query (partial or complete) is generated for each identified candidate actionable intent. Natural language processing module 732 determines an intent confidence score for each candidate actionable intent and ranks the candidate actionable intents based on the intent confidence scores. In some examples, natural language processing module 732 passes the generated structured query (or queries), including any completed parameters, to task flow processing module 736 (“task flow processor”). In some examples, the structured query (or queries) for the m-best (e.g., m highest ranked) candidate actionable intents are provided to task flow processing module 736, where m is a predetermined integer greater than zero. In some examples, the structured query (or queries) for the m-best candidate actionable intents are provided to task flow processing module 736 with the corresponding candidate text representation(s).

Other details of inferring a user intent based on multiple candidate actionable intents determined from multiple candidate text representations of a speech input are described in U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 14/298,725 for “System and Method for Inferring User Intent From Speech Inputs,” filed Jun. 6, 2014, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

Task flow processing module 736 is configured to receive the structured query (or queries) from natural language processing module 732, complete the structured query, if necessary, and perform the actions required to “complete” the user's ultimate request. In some examples, the various procedures necessary to complete these tasks are provided in task flow models 754. In some examples, task flow models 754 include procedures for obtaining additional information from the user and task flows for performing actions associated with the actionable intent.

As described above, in order to complete a structured query, task flow processing module 736 needs to initiate additional dialogue with the user in order to obtain additional information, and/or disambiguate potentially ambiguous utterances. When such interactions are necessary, task flow processing module 736 invokes dialogue flow processing module 734 to engage in a dialogue with the user. In some examples, dialogue flow processing module 734 determines how (and/or when) to ask the user for the additional information and receives and processes the user responses. The questions are provided to and answers are received from the users through I/O processing module 728. In some examples, dialogue flow processing module 734 presents dialogue output to the user via audio and/or visual output, and receives input from the user via spoken or physical (e.g., clicking) responses. Continuing with the example above, when task flow processing module 736 invokes dialogue flow processing module 734 to determine the “party size” and “date” information for the structured query associated with the domain “restaurant reservation,” dialogue flow processing module 734 generates questions such as “For how many people?” and “On which day?” to pass to the user. Once answers are received from the user, dialogue flow processing module 734 then populates the structured query with the missing information, or pass the information to task flow processing module 736 to complete the missing information from the structured query.

Once task flow processing module 736 has completed the structured query for an actionable intent, task flow processing module 736 proceeds to perform the ultimate task associated with the actionable intent. Accordingly, task flow processing module 736 executes the steps and instructions in the task flow model according to the specific parameters contained in the structured query. For example, the task flow model for the actionable intent of “restaurant reservation” includes steps and instructions for contacting a restaurant and actually requesting a reservation for a particular party size at a particular time. For example, using a structured query such as: {restaurant reservation, restaurant=ABC Café, date=3/12/2012, time=7 pm, party size=5}, task flow processing module 736 performs the steps of: (1) logging onto a server of the ABC Café or a restaurant reservation system such as OPENTABLE®, (2) entering the date, time, and party size information in a form on the website, (3) submitting the form, and (4) making a calendar entry for the reservation in the user's calendar.

In some examples, task flow processing module 736 employs the assistance of service processing module 738 (“service processing module”) to complete a task requested in the user input or to provide an informational answer requested in the user input. For example, service processing module 738 acts on behalf of task flow processing module 736 to make a phone call, set a calendar entry, invoke a map search, invoke or interact with other user applications installed on the user device, and invoke or interact with third-party services (e.g., a restaurant reservation portal, a social networking website, a banking portal, etc.). In some examples, the protocols and application programming interfaces (API) required by each service are specified by a respective service model among service models 756. Service processing module 738 accesses the appropriate service model for a service and generate requests for the service in accordance with the protocols and APIs required by the service according to the service model.

For example, if a restaurant has enabled an online reservation service, the restaurant submits a service model specifying the necessary parameters for making a reservation and the APIs for communicating the values of the necessary parameter to the online reservation service. When requested by task flow processing module 736, service processing module 738 establishes a network connection with the online reservation service using the web address stored in the service model, and send the necessary parameters of the reservation (e.g., time, date, party size) to the online reservation interface in a format according to the API of the online reservation service.

In some examples, natural language processing module 732, dialogue flow processing module 734, and task flow processing module 736 are used collectively and iteratively to infer and define the user's intent, obtain information to further clarify and refine the user intent, and finally generate a response (i.e., an output to the user, or the completion of a task) to fulfill the user's intent. The generated response is a dialogue response to the speech input that at least partially fulfills the user's intent. Further, in some examples, the generated response is output as a speech output. In these examples, the generated response is sent to speech synthesis module 740 (e.g., speech synthesizer) where it can be processed to synthesize the dialogue response in speech form. In yet other examples, the generated response is data content relevant to satisfying a user request in the speech input.

In examples where task flow processing module 736 receives multiple structured queries from natural language processing module 732, task flow processing module 736 initially processes the first structured query of the received structured queries to attempt to complete the first structured query and/or execute one or more tasks or actions represented by the first structured query. In some examples, the first structured query corresponds to the highest ranked actionable intent. In other examples, the first structured query is selected from the received structured queries based on a combination of the corresponding speech recognition confidence scores and the corresponding intent confidence scores. In some examples, if task flow processing module 736 encounters an error during processing of the first structured query (e.g., due to an inability to determine a necessary parameter), the task flow processing module 736 can proceed to select and process a second structured query of the received structured queries that corresponds to a lower ranked actionable intent. The second structured query is selected, for example, based on the speech recognition confidence score of the corresponding candidate text representation, the intent confidence score of the corresponding candidate actionable intent, a missing necessary parameter in the first structured query, or any combination thereof.

Speech synthesis module 740 is configured to synthesize speech outputs for presentation to the user. Speech synthesis module 740 synthesizes speech outputs based on text provided by the digital assistant. For example, the generated dialogue response is in the form of a text string. Speech synthesis module 740 converts the text string to an audible speech output. Speech synthesis module 740 uses any appropriate speech synthesis technique in order to generate speech outputs from text, including, but not limited, to concatenative synthesis, unit selection synthesis, diphone synthesis, domain-specific synthesis, formant synthesis, articulatory synthesis, hidden Markov model (HMM) based synthesis, and sinewave synthesis. In some examples, speech synthesis module 740 is configured to synthesize individual words based on phonemic strings corresponding to the words. For example, a phonemic string is associated with a word in the generated dialogue response. The phonemic string is stored in metadata associated with the word. Speech synthesis model 740 is configured to directly process the phonemic string in the metadata to synthesize the word in speech form.

In some examples, instead of (or in addition to) using speech synthesis module 740, speech synthesis is performed on a remote device (e.g., the server system 108), and the synthesized speech is sent to the user device for output to the user. For example, this can occur in some implementations where outputs for a digital assistant are generated at a server system. And because server systems generally have more processing power or resources than a user device, it is possible to obtain higher quality speech outputs than would be practical with client-side synthesis.

Additional details on digital assistants can be found in the U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 12/987,982, entitled “Intelligent Automated Assistant,” filed Jan. 10, 2011, and U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 13/251,088, entitled “Generating and Processing Task Items That Represent Tasks to Perform,” filed Sep. 30, 2011, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.

4. Exemplary Functions and Architectures of a Digital Assistant Providing a Contextually Appropriate Set of Predicted Responses.

FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a digital assistant 800 for providing a set of predicted responses, according to various examples. In some examples, digital assistant 800 (e.g., digital assistant system 700) is implemented by a user device according to various examples. In some examples, the user device, a server (e.g., server 108), or a combination thereof, can implement digital assistant 800. The user device can be implemented using, for example, device 104, 200, 400, 600, or 900 as illustrated in FIGS. 1, 2A-2B, 4, 6A-6B, 9A-9B, and 13. In some examples, digital assistant 800 can be implemented using digital assistant module 726 of digital assistant system 700. Digital assistant 800 includes one or more modules, models, applications, vocabularies, and user data similar to those of digital assistant module 726. For example, digital assistant 800 includes the following sub-modules, or a subset or superset thereof: an input/output processing module, an STT process module, a natural language processing module, a task flow processing module, and a speech synthesis module. These modules can also be implemented similar to that of the corresponding modules as illustrated in FIG. 7B, and therefore are not shown and not repeatedly described.

As illustrated in FIG. 8, in some examples, digital assistant 800 can include a natural language analyzer 820, a query evaluator 840, a predicted response evaluator 860, and a predicted response generator 880. As illustrated in FIG. 8, digital assistant 800 can receive one or more messages 802 that include unstructured natural language information. Messages 802 can be text messages, email messages, and/or voice messages. FIG. 9A illustrates a user interface 902 for receiving one or more messages comprising unstructured natural language information, according to various examples. As illustrated in FIG. 9A, an electronic device 900 provides a user interface 902 for receiving and providing messages. For example, a first user may be having a conversation with a second user (e.g., his friend) using user interface 902. In one scenario, the first user can provide a message 802A on user interface 902, such as “I haven't heard from you for a while . . . .” In response, the second user can reply to the first user by providing a message 802B such as “On my way home after spending 10 days surfing in Hawaii.” Message 802B is received and displayed on user interface 902. The first user can then provide a follow-up message 802C such as “Really, how was it?” While messages shown in FIG. 9A are illustrated using text messages, it can be appreciated that the messages can also be any other type of messages such as email messages or voice messages.

With reference back to FIG. 8, in some examples, messages 802 can be provided to natural language analyzer 820. In some examples, natural language analyzer 820 can be implemented using one or more components of natural language processing module 760 as illustrated in FIG. 7B. As described above, messages 802 can include unstructured natural language information in the form of texts or speech inputs. Natural language analyzer 820 can analyze the unstructured natural language information contained in messages 802. In some examples, based on the unstructured natural language information contained in messages 802, natural language analyzer 820 obtains unstructured natural language texts and determines token sequences according to semantics, syntax, and/or punctuation marks associated with the unstructured natural language texts. For example, if messages 802 include one or more voice messages, natural language analyzer 820 can perform speech-to-text conversion to obtain texts (e.g., token sequences).

Using the above described scenario illustrated in FIG. 9A as an example, natural language analyzer 820 can obtain a token sequence corresponding to the messages 802A-C. For example, the token sequence can include the one or more words and punctuation marks included in messages 802A-C. Based on the token sequence, natural language analyzer 820 can determine a user intent using, for example, ontology 760 shown in FIG. 7B. For example, with respect to messages 802A and 802B, natural language analyzer 820 determines that they are generic statements between two users and no response or task performance is likely required from digital assistant 800. Natural language analyzer 820 can also determine that message 802C includes a punctuation mark “?”, indicating that the first user is likely asking a question to the second user. In some examples, natural language analyzer 820 can determine that a message is a question without a punctuation mark (e.g., “?”). A question asked by a user may or may not require digital assistant 800 to provide one or more predicted responses to the question and/or to perform a task. In some examples, to further determine whether digital assistant 800 should provide one or more predicted responses to the question and/or should perform a task, the results of analysis performed by natural language analyzer 820 are further evaluated by query evaluator 840.

With reference to FIGS. 8 and 9A, query evaluator 840 can determine, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided. In some examples, in determining whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided, query evaluator 840 can classify one or more messages 802 based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information included in messages 802. Depending on the contents of messages 802A-C, messages 802A-C can be classified into one or more categories. FIG. 9B illustrates a plurality of categories 942 and corresponding examples 944. For example, query evaluator 840 can classify one or more messages into one or more categories 942. As shown in FIG. 9B, a message 944A can be classified as category 942A, which include generic statements, generic queries, or both. For instance, a message 944A such as “They sky is blue” can be classified into the category of generic statements, which likely requires no response or comment. A message 944A such as “Who?”, “What?”, “Where?” can be classified into the category of generic queries, which likely requires exact or precise factual responses. A message 944A such as “I'm ready” may be classified into the category of either generic statements or generic queries, which may or may not require a response or comment. For example, there may be no response to the message “I'm ready”, or there may be a response such as “Ok, let's go.”

As further illustrated in FIG. 9B, query evaluator 840 can classify one or more messages 944B into category 942B. For example, a message 944B such as “Will you come?” can be classified into the category of queries that may have responses associated with one or more polarities. A polarity refers to classification of sentiment in unstructured natural language information. For example, responses to the message “Will you come?” include “Yes,” “NO,” or “Maybe.” As another example, a message 944B such as “Have you left yet?” can be classified into a query that may have responses associated with polarities that are more definite. For instance, the responses to the message “Have you left yet?” may include only “Yes” or “No”, but not “maybe.”

As further illustrated in FIG. 9B, query evaluator 840 can classify one or more message 944C into category 942C. For example, a message 944C such as “How was it?” can be classified into a query that may require evaluation responses. For instance, responses to the query “How was it?” may include “Good/Awesome/Excellent,” “Bad/Awful/Miserable,” “OK/Fine/All right,” or the like. As another example, a message 944C such as “Where are you?” can be classified into the category of a query that may have a response indicating the location of the user. Responses to the message “Where are you?” may include “I'm home,” “Near Cupertino,” or the like. It is appreciated that FIG. 9B includes an exemplary list of message categories 942 and examples 944, and query evaluator 840 can classify messages into any other categories not included in the exemplary list illustrated in FIG. 9B.

In some embodiments, query evaluator 840 can classify messages using a rule-based engine. For example, the rule-based engine can assign a message category based at least in part on the occurrence of one or more words in the message. Example of such words include “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “how” “are you” and “or.” In some examples, the rule-based engine can assign a message class based at least in part on the occurrence of a punctuation mark used in the message. An example of such punctuation marks includes the question mark. In some examples, the rule-based engine can assign a message category based at least in part on the use of an honorific in the message. Examples include the use of suffices such as “-san” in a message. In some examples, the rule-based engine can identify relevant language markers such as auxiliaries and interrogative pronouns to classify the messages. In some examples, the rule-based engine can identify syntactic constructs such as verb-predicate inversions.

In some embodiments, query evaluator 840 can classify messages using data-driven learning networks, such as machine learning networks. For example, query evaluator 840 can be implemented using a recurrent neural network (RNN) (e.g., a long short-term memory (LSTM) network). A collection of training messages can be provided to the RNN. The RNN processes training messages in a context sensitive manner and outputs classifications of the training messages. After the RNN is trained, it can classify one or more messages 802 as illustrated in FIG. 8 with a relatively high accuracy or confidence.

With reference to FIGS. 8 and 9A, in some embodiments, in accordance with the classification of the one or more messages 802, query evaluator 840 can determine whether the classification corresponds to one or more query categories. Using the examples shown in FIG. 9A, query evaluator 840 can classify messages 802A and 802B (e.g., “I haven't heard from you for a while” and “On my way home after spending 10 days surfing in Hawaii”) into categories of generic statements or generic queries. Query evaluator 840 can classify message 802C (e.g., “Really, how was it?”) into a query category that may require evaluation responses. Thus, the classification of message 802C indicates that it corresponds to a query category (e.g., category 942C as shown in FIG. 9B).

With reference to FIGS. 8, 9A, and 9B, in some examples, a query category can be associated with a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. As described above, for example, for a message classified into category 942C shown in FIG. 9A, there can be a plurality sets of candidate predicted responses. For example, with respect to message 802C such as “How was it?”, one set of candidate predicted responses can be “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}”; another set of candidate predicted responses can be “{Good/Bad/OK}”; and yet another set of candidate predicted responses can be “{Most excellent/Miserable/All right}.” As shown in FIG. 9A, after digital assistant 800 receives message 802C (e.g., “Really, how was it?”), it can provide one set of predicted responses, from the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, for the user to choose. Providing a set of predicted responses reduces the burden of the user to enter a response (e.g., type in a complete response on user interface 902), thereby improving user-interface efficiency. As illustrated in the above examples, a set of predicted responses can include responses having different polarities.

In some embodiments, in accordance with a determination that one or more messages 802 corresponds to one or more query categories, query evaluator 840 can determine that one or more predicted responses are to be provided. For example, after query evaluator 840 determines that the classification of message 802C corresponds to a query category (e.g., category 942C), query evaluator 840 can thus determine that predicted responses should be provided to the user. As described above, for a particular query (e.g., “How was it?”) classified into a query category, there may be multiple sets of candidate predicted responses. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses. For example, depending on the particular user, the conversational history, and/or other context information, one set of candidate predicted response may be ranked higher than another set and thus provided to the user, as described in more detail below.

With reference to FIGS. 8 and 10, in some embodiments, in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, a predicted response evaluator 860 can determine, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information. Context information can include, for example, information related to the user preferences (e.g., the user prefers to use the word “awesome” rather than “good”). Context information can also include the information associated with the previously received and/or currently received messages (e.g., messages 802A-C). For example, depending on the intended recipient or subject matter of the messages, a more deferential or a less deferential set of predicted responses may be appropriate. With respect to a query such as “Can you drive?”, a more deferential set of predicted responses can be “{I'll be honored/I'm sorry to have to decline},” while a less deferential set of predicted responses can be “{Sure thing/Sorry, no}.”

In some embodiments, context information can include data associated with the user's device. For example, with respect to a query such as “Where are you?”, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine a set of predicted responses (e.g., “I am in Cupertino,” “On my way home”) based on the device's location data (e.g., GPS coordinates). It is appreciated that other context information can also be used in determining a set of predicted responses by predicted response evaluator 860.

FIG. 10 illustrates a scenario for determining a set of predicted responses, according to various examples. As shown in FIG. 10, in some examples, context information can include one or more first contexts 1002, one or more observed responses 1003, and one or more second contexts 1004. In some examples, first contexts 1002 are also denoted as first contexts “c”. Second contexts 1004 are also denoted as second contexts “{tilde over (c)}”. First contexts 1002 can include a plurality of stored messages (e.g., messages 1002A-1002C). The stored messages can include one or more training messages, which can be messages collected from the past conversations between users (e.g., messages collected between user A and user B). In some examples, the stored messages in first contexts 1002 can include at least one query corresponding to one or more query categories. And the one or more observed responses 1003 includes at least one response to the at least one query in first contexts 1002. As illustrated in FIG. 10, first contexts 1002 can include stored messages 1002A-C. For example, in message 1002A, user A states “Long time no see!” In message 1002B, user B states “I've just come back from two weeks of vacation in Fiji . . . .” In message 1002C, user A states “Sounds very cool! How was it?” And in observed response 1003, user B states “Total awesome dude!!” Thus, in first contexts 1002, messages 1002A-B include generic statements; and message 1002C includes a query. And observed response 1003 includes a response to the query in message 1002C. In some examples, an observed response is also denoted as observed response “a”.

As shown in FIGS. 8 and 10, as described, query evaluator 840 can classify one or more stored messages 1002A-C in first contexts 1002. Similar to those described above, query evaluator 840 can classify stored messages into one or more categories (e.g., categories 942). For example, query evaluator 840 can classify message 1002C (e.g., “How was it?”) into category 942C, such as a category of a query that may have evaluation responses (e.g., “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}”). In some embodiments, observed responses (e.g., observed response 1003) may correspond to one or more sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., candidate predicted response sets 1010). As illustrated in FIG. 10, the observed response in message 1003 (e.g., “Totally awesome dude!!”) corresponds to a response in a set of candidate predicted responses 1010B (e.g. “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}”). In some examples, a set of candidate predicted responses is also denoted as response set “r”. A set of candidate predicted responses can also include a plurality of responses having different polarities. As described above, a polarity refers to classification of sentiment in unstructured natural language information (e.g., “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}” or “{Yes/No/Maybe}”).

As described above and shown in FIG. 10, context information can also include second contexts 1004, also denoted as second contexts “{tilde over (c)}”. Second contexts 1004 can include one or more currently received messages, for which a set of predicted responses is to be determined and provided to the user. For examples, second contexts 1004 include the currently received messages 802A-802C. For example, in message 802A, user U states “I haven't heard from you for a while . . . .” In message 802B, user V states “On my way home after spending 10 days surfing in Hawaii.” In message 802C, user U states “Really, how was it?” As described above, message 802C in second contexts 1004 can include a query (e.g., “Really, how was it?”), which can be classified into a query category (e.g., category 942C) that may require evaluation responses. Thus, as shown in FIG. 10, one or more messages in first contexts 1002 and one or more messages in second contexts 1004 may be classified into the same category. For example, message 1002C in first contexts 1002 and message 802C in second contexts 1004 may be both classified into the same category 942C. In some embodiments, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine a set of predicted responses with respect to the currently received messages (e.g., message 802C) based on the context information (e.g., based on first contexts 1002, observed responses 1003, and second contexts 1004).

With reference to FIG. 10, the stored messages in first contexts 1002 may or may not be collected from conversations between the same users who provide the currently received messages included in second contexts 1004. For example, users A and B, who provide the stored messages 1002A-C, may or may not be the same as users U and V, who provide currently received messages 802A-C.

With references to FIGS. 8 and 10, to determine one set of predicted responses from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., candidate predicted response sets 1010A-C), predicted response evaluator 860 can determining similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses; and determine the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. As described, context information can include first contexts 1002, observed responses 1003, and second contexts 1004. First contexts 1002 and observed responses 1003 can include one or more stored messages (e.g., previously received messages), and second contexts 1004 can include one or more currently received messages.

In some embodiments, to determine the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, predicted response evaluator 860 can first obtain a sequence representation space. An exemplary sequence representation space 1200 is depicted in FIG. 12 and will be described in more detail below. A sequence representation space can include sequence representations of the context information and sequence representations of the plurality sets of candidate predicted responses. A sequence representation space can facilitate the determination of similarities among the sequence representations in an effective and accurate manner. In some examples, with reference to FIGS. 8 and 10, to obtain the sequence representation space, predicted response evaluator 860 can generate sequence representations of first contexts 1002, observed responses 1003, second contexts 1004, and/or plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses 1010. In some embodiments, sequence representations of first contexts 1002, observed responses 1003, second contexts 1004, and/or plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses 1010 are generated during a training phase, where the sequence representations of second contexts 1004 (e.g., containing one or more currently received messages 802) are generated during an inference phase following the training phase.

FIGS. 11A-11B illustrate a network 1100 for obtaining sequence representations of context information and sequence representations of a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, according to various examples. As described, the context information can include first contexts 1002, observed responses 1003, and second contexts 1004. Thus, network 1100 can be used to generate sequence representations of first contexts 1002, observed responses 1003, second contexts 1004, and/or plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses 1010. In some embodiments, network 1100 can be a neural network, such as a bi-directional neural network (e.g., an LTSM network). In some examples, network 1100 includes multiple layers such as an input layer 1140, one or more hidden layers 1120, and an output layer 1110. In this example shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B, network 1100 includes a single hidden layer 1120. It will be appreciated, however, that in other examples, network 1100 can include one or more additional hidden layers to form a deeper network.

In some examples, each layer of network 1100 includes a number of units. A layer can, for instance, include a single unit or includes multiple units. These units, which in some examples are referred to as dimensions, neurons, or nodes (e.g., context nodes), operate as the computational elements of network 1100. Network 1100 can be used to perform sequence embedding (and/or character or word embedding) to generate sequence representations of the context information and sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidates predicted responses.

FIG. 11A is a compact representation of network 1100 and FIG. 11B is an equivalent representation of the network 1100 with the time unfolded. Network 1100 can include a plurality of input units, hidden units, and output units. For example, input units 1144 (e.g., x(t)) of FIG. 11A are unfolded as input units 1144A-T (e.g., x(1), x(2), . . . x(T)) of FIG. 11B. Similarly, current left-context units 1122 (e.g., h(t)) of FIG. 11A are unfolded as current left-context units 1122A-T (e.g., h(1), h(2), . . . h(T)) of FIG. 11B. Current right-context units 1124 (e.g., g(t)) of FIG. 11A are unfolded as current right-context units 1124A-T (e.g., g(1), g(2), . . . g(T)) of FIG. 11B. In the examples shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B, “t” represents time and is in discrete time steps such as 1, 2, . . . T, where “T” represents the maximum time step. FIGS. 11A and 11B are described below together.

With reference to FIGS. 8, 11A, and 11B, in some embodiments, network 1100 includes multiple layers such as an input layer 1140, one or more hidden layers 1120, and an output layer 1110. In this example, network 1100 includes a single hidden layer 1120. In some embodiments, to determine one or more sequence representations of context information (e.g., previously received or stored messages 1002A-C, observed responses 1003, and/or currently received messages 802A-C shown in FIG. 10) and sequence representations of the sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., candidate predicted response sets 1010 shown in FIG. 10), predicted response evaluator 860 generates input layer 1140 based on the context information and the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses; generates hidden layer 1120 based on the input layer 1140; and generates an output layer 1110 based on the hidden layer 1120.

With references to FIGS. 11A and 11B, input layer 1140 of network 1100 includes a plurality of input units 1144 (e.g., x(t)). Each input unit 1144 (e.g., x(1), x(2), . . . x(T)) can represent a token (e.g., a character, a word, or a sequence of words) obtained from the context information (e.g., stored messages 1002A-C as shown in FIG. 10) or the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., candidate predicted response sets 1010 as shown in FIG. 10). Thus, for generating sequence representations of the context information, input unit 1144 represents tokens obtained from the context information; and for generating sequence representations of plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, input unit 1144 represents tokens obtained from the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. In some examples, as shown in FIG. 11B, “T” corresponds to the maximum number of tokens (e.g., characters, words, or sequence of words) in a window of tokens being processed. A window of tokens being processed together with a current token can include the current token and one or more neighboring tokens. The window of tokens can be included in the input layer 1140 of network 1100 to be processed together. Including the neighboring tokens in processing a current token can generate contextually proper sequence representations. In some examples, the maximum number of tokens in a window of tokens can be 30. The maximum number of tokens can be determined based on a determination of the relevance between the neighboring tokens and the current token. For example, if a word that is separated from a word currently being processed by more than 30 words, it is likely that word is irrelevant (e.g., semantically irrelevant). And thus a word that is separate beyond a threshold distance from the word currently being processed in network 1100 may not need to be considered while processing the current word.

As shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B, an input unit 1144 can be represented as a vector having a dimension of N×1, where “N” represents the number of tokens (e.g., characters, words, sequences of words) in a vocabulary. As a result, each input unit (e.g., a current input unit x(t)) may have a 1-of-N encoding. In some examples, input layer 1140 also includes or receives a plurality of preceding left-context units 1142 (e.g., h(t−1)). A preceding left-context unit 1142 (e.g., h(t−1)) includes an internal representation of context from one or more output values of a preceding time step in the hidden layer 1120. As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, in some examples, a preceding left-context unit 1142 (e.g., h(t−1)) and a current input unit 1144 (e.g., x(t)) can be used in generating a current left-context unit 1122 (e.g., h(t)). Preceding left-context units 1142 are provided from hidden layer 1120 to input layer 1140 via one or more left recurrent connections 1123 (e.g., recurrent connections 1123A, 1123B). In some examples, a current left-context unit 1122 (e.g., h(t)) can be generated according to formula (1) below. h(t)=F{X·x(t)+W·h(t−1)}  (1) In formula (1), x(t) represents a current input unit 1144; h(t−1) represents a preceding left-context unit 1142; h(t) represents a current left-context unit 1122; X represents a first weight matrix that has a dimension of H×N; and W represents a second weighting matrix that has a dimension of H×H. In some embodiments, F{ } denotes an activation function, such as a sigmoid, a hyperbolic tangent, rectified linear unit, any function related thereto, or any combination thereof. In some examples, a current left-context unit 1122 (e.g., h(t)) is indicative of a state of network 1100 and have a dimension of H×1.

As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, in some examples, input layer 1140 can also include or receive a plurality of following right-context units 1146. A following right-context unit 1146 (e.g., g(t+1)) includes an internal representation of context from one or more output values of a following time step (e.g., a future time step) in the hidden layer 1120. As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, in some examples, a following right-context unit 1146 (e.g., g(t+1)) and a current input unit 1144 (e.g., x(t)) are used in generating a current right-context unit 1124 (e.g., g(t)). For example, as shown in FIG. 11B, a current right-context unit 1124A (e.g., g(1)) is generated based on a current input unit 1144A (e.g., x(1)) and a following right-context unit 1124B (e.g., g(2)). As shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B, following right-context units 1146 are provided from hidden layer 1120 to input layer 1140 via one or more right recurrent connections 1125 (e.g., recurrent connections 1125A, 1125B).

With reference to FIGS. 11A and 11B, hidden layer 1120 includes a plurality of current right-context units 1124. In some examples, a current right-context unit 1124 (e.g., g(t)) is represented as a vector having a dimension of H×1. In a bi-directional RNN such as network 1100, generating current right-context units 1124 includes, for example, weighting a current input unit using a third weight matrix, weighting a following right-context unit using a fourth weight matrix, and determining a current right-context unit based on the weighting of the current input unit and the weighting of the following second-context unit. As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, in some examples, a current right-context unit 1124 (e.g., g(t)) can be generated according to formula (2) below. g(t)=F{Y·x(t)+V·g(t+1)}  (2) In formula (2), x(t) represents a current input unit 1144; g(t+1) represents a following right-context unit 1146; g(t) represents the current right-context unit 1124; Y represents a third weight matrix that has a dimension of H×N; V represents a fourth weighting matrix that has a dimension of H×H. In some embodiments, F{ } denotes an activation function, such as a sigmoid, a hyperbolic tangent, rectified linear unit, any function related thereto, or any combination thereof.

As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, in some examples, network 1100 includes an output layer 1110. Output layer 1110 includes a classification category output 1114 (e.g., denote as “q”). In some embodiments, classification category output 1114 corresponds to a sequence representation of the context information (e.g., stored messages 1002A-C, observed responses 1003, and/or currently received messages 802A-C as shown in FIG. 10) or a sequence representation of a set of candidate predicted responses (e.g., candidate predicted response sets 1010 as shown in FIG. 10). In some examples, a current state of network 1100 can be determined based on current left-context units 1122 and current right-context units 1124. The current state of network 1100 can be denoted as s(t) and has a dimension of 2H. As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, in some examples, the current state (e.g., s(t)) is obtained by concatenation of a current left-context unit 1122 (e.g., h(t)) and a current right-context unit 1124 (e.g., g(t)), according to formula (3) below. s(t)=[h(t)g(t)]  (3) In formula (3), s(t) represents the current state of network 1100; h(t) represents current left-context unit 1122; and g(t) represents current right-context unit 1124.

With reference to FIGS. 11A and 11B, as described, a bi-directional RNN such as network 1100 can be used to determine a classification category output 1114 (e.g., denoted as “q”). In some embodiments, to determine classification category output 1114, predicted response evaluator 860 concatenates a trailing left-context unit (e.g., h(T)) and a leading right-context unit (e.g., g(1)), weights the concatenation of the trailing left-context unit and the leading right-context unit, and determines the classification category output 1114 based on the weighting of the concatenation. A trailing left-context unit is the ending unit in the sequence of left-context units of a hidden layer. As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, left-context unit 1122T (e.g., h(T)) of hidden layer 1120 is the trailing left-context unit. A leading second-context unit is the beginning right-context unit in the sequence of right-context units of the hidden layer. For example, the leading right-context unit is the right-context unit at time t=1, which represents the first time step in the sequence g(t). As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, right-context unit 1124A (e.g., g(1)) of hidden layer 1120 is the leading right-context unit. As illustrated in FIGS. 11A and 11B, in some examples, classification category output 1114 (e.g., q) is generated according to formula (4) below, q=G{

·[h(T)g(1)])}  (4)

In formula (4), h(T) represents the trailing left-context unit, g(1) represents the leading right-context unit, [h(T) g(1)] denotes a concatenation function, Q represents an fifth weighting matrix, and G denotes a function such as a softmax activation function. In some embodiments, classification category output 1114 (e.g., denoted as “q”) has an 1-of-L encoding. The “L” represents a number (e.g., 12) of the classification categories (e.g., categories 942 shown in FIG. 9B) associated with the context information (e.g., stored messages 1002A-C) and/or classification categories associated the sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., candidate predicted response sets 1010).

In above formula (4), [h(T) g(1)] can be represented as formula (5) below. s _(x)=[h(T)g(1)]  (5) In formula (5), s_(x) is a vector having a dimension of 2H, and can form a sequence representation of the an input sequence {x(t)}, where 1≤t≤T. In some examples, s_(x) can be a sequence representation included in a sequence representation space (e.g., sequence representation space 1200, also denoted as space S in FIG. 12). As described above, while FIGS. 11A and 11B illustrate a network 1100 that has a single hidden layer, it is appreciated that multiple hidden layers can be implemented for network 1100. For example, two RNN (e.g., LSTM) networks can be stacked on top of one another and there can be multiple possible representations of an input sequence.

As described above, sequence representations of the one or more context information (e.g., vectors representing stored messages 1002A-C) and sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., vectors representing candidate predicted response sets 1010) can form a sequence representation space. FIG. 12 illustrates a sequence representation space 1200 including multiple sequence representations of context information and sequence representations of plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, according to various examples. For example, predicted response evaluator 860 can obtain a sequence representation space 1200 (e.g., denoted as sequence representation space S or referred to as space 1200) based on the sequence representations generated by network 1100 as shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B.

With reference to FIGS. 8, 10, and 12, in some examples, sequence representation space 1200 includes one or more sequence representations of context information and plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, sequence representation space 1200 can include one or more sequent representations of candidate predicted response sets 1202 (e.g., denoted as “r”), one or more sequence representations of individual candidate predicted responses 1204 (e.g., denoted as “x”), one or more sequence representations of first contexts (e.g., denoted as “c”), one or more sequence representations of observed responses 1208 (e.g., denoted as “a”), and one or more sequence representations of second contexts 1212 (e.g., denoted as “{tilde over (c)}”). In some examples, based on sequence representation space 1200, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine one or more sequence representations of most similar first context 1214 (e.g., denoted as “(c)”), one or more sequence representations of most relevant observed response 1216 (e.g., denoted as “(a)”), one or more sequence representations of most relevant candidate predicted response set 1218 (e.g., denoted as “(r)”), and one or more individual candidate predicted responses 1220 in a most relevant set (e.g., denoted as “(x)”). The determination of the sequence representations 1214, 1216, 1218, and 1220 can be performed based on similarities among at least some of the sequence representations included in sequence representation space 1200, and is described in more detail below.

As shown in FIG. 12, in some examples, the sequence representations included in space 1200 can include one or more sub-spaces based on the classification categories. For example, space 1200 can include sub-space 1210 (e.g., denoted as “(q)”) and sub-space 1250 (e.g., denoted as “(q′)”). One or more sub-spaces included in space 1200 can be formed based on the classification categories associated with the sequence representations. As described above and shown in FIGS. 11A-11B, classification category output 1114 can have a 1-of-L encoding, where the “L” represents a number (e.g., 12) of the classification categories (e.g., categories 942 in FIG. 9B) associated with the context information (e.g., stored messages 1002A-C) and/or classification categories associated the sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., candidate predicted response sets 1010). Thus, in some examples, predicted response evaluator 860 can form sub-spaces including sequence representations of the same classification categories. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, a sub-space 1210 can include sequence representations of a classification category of a query evaluation that may require evaluation responses (e.g., category 942C shown in FIG. 9B, which may have evaluation responses such as “Good/Awesome/Excellent,” “Bad/Awful/Miserable,” “OK/Fine/All right,” or the like.). As another example, a sub-space 1250 can include sequence representations of a classification category of a query that may have responses in different polarities (e.g., category 942B shown in FIG. 9B, which may have responses such as “Yes/NO/Talk later”).

In some embodiments, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine correlations among at least a part of the sequence representations within sequence representation space 1200. As shown in FIG. 12, correlations among sequence representations are illustrated using lines and associated distances between two sequence representations. For example, a thin solid line (e.g., line 1232) can represent a correlation between a sequence representation of a first context 1206 (e.g., denotes as “c”) and a sequence representation of an observed response 1208 (e.g., denoted as “a”). Thus, line 1232 represents a correlation between a pair of (c, a). A thin solid line (e.g., line 1234) can also represent a correlation between a sequence representation of a first context 1206 (e.g., denoted as “c”) and a sequence representation of an individual candidate predicted response 1204 (e.g., denoted as “x”). Thus, line 1234 represents a correlation between a pair of (c, x). As another example, a dashed line (e.g., line 1236) can represent a correlation between a sequence representation of an individual candidate predicted response 1204 (e.g., denoted as “x”) and a candidate predicted response set 1202 (e.g., denoted as “r”).

In some examples, a distance (also referred to as proximity) associated with a line illustrated in FIG. 12 can indicate the similarity between the two sequence representations (e.g., vectors) associated with the line. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, a thick dotted line (e.g., line 1238) can have a short distance and thus indicate that a sequence representation of a particular first context (e.g., most similar first context 1214) is close in proximity to a sequence representation of a particular second context (e.g., second context 1212 that includes one or more currently received messages). For example, as illustrated in FIGS. 10 and 12, predicted response evaluator 860 may determine the distance or proximity between the sequence representations of a stored message 1002C (e.g., “How was it?”) and a currently received message 802C (e.g., “Really, how was it?”). Predicted response evaluator 860 may determine that these two sequence representations has a close proximity within space 1200, and therefore sequence representations of stored message 1002C may be the most similar first context 1214 (e.g., denoted as “(c)”) with respect to the currently received message 802C.

As described, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine the correlations between at least a part of the sequence representations included in space 1200. In some embodiments, predicted response evaluator 860 can make such determination based on latent semantic analysis techniques, in which clustering techniques are applied to the sequence representations (e.g., vectors). The latent semantic analysis techniques are described in more detail in “Exploiting Latent Semantic Information in Statistical Language Modeling,” by J. R. Bellegarda, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 88, No. 8, pp. 1279-1296, August 2000, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, and included in the Appendix.

In some embodiments, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine, based on the correlations among at least part of the sequence representations, similarities among the sequence representations of the context information and sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. In some examples, such similarity determinations are made during a training phase. For example, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine similarities among the sequence representations of one or more observed responses (e.g., observed response 1003 shown in FIG. 10) included in the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., one or more individual candidate predicted responses included in candidate predicted response set 1010B). In some embodiments, predicted response evaluator 860 can use formula (6) below for making such similarity determination.

$\begin{matrix} {{\Gamma_{q}\left( {a,r} \right)} = {\max\limits_{i}{s_{a}^{T} \cdot S_{r_{i}}}}} & (6) \end{matrix}$ In formula (6), Γ_(q)(a, r) denotes a maximum value of similarities between the sequence representation of an observed response a and the sequence representation of each individual candidate predicted response in a set of candidate predicted responses; s_(a) ^(T) denotes a transposition of the sequence representation (e.g., a vector) of the observed response a; and S_(r) _(i) denotes the sequence representation (e.g., a vector) of the ith individual candidate predicted response, where 1≤i≤P and “P” represents the number of individual candidate predicted responses in a set. In some examples, the “P” can have a value between 2 and 4. As described above, a set of candidate predicted responses can have multiple candidate predicted responses with different polarities (e.g., “Awesome,” “Awful,” and “Fine”). And an observed response may be more similar to one of the candidate predicted responses in a set than to others in the same set. Therefore, in some examples, using formula (6), predicted response evaluator 860 can obtain a maximum value of the similarities between the sequence representation of an observed response and the sequence representation of each of the individual candidate predicted responses in a set of candidate predicted responses. The particular individual candidate predicted response that corresponds to the maximum value of similarity can thus be the most similar individual candidate predicted response. FIG. 12 illustrates a most similar individual candidate predicted response associated with line 1242. In FIG. 12, a most similar individual candidate predicted response (e.g., denoted as “(x)”) is depicted to be associated with a most relevant observed response 1216 (e.g., denoted as “(a)”) through a thick dotted line 1242. In some examples, the similarities are determined within every sub-space (e.g., sub-spaces 1210 and 1250, denoted as “(q)” and “(q′)” respectively), which are formed based on classification categories.

In some embodiments, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine, based on the correlations, similarities among the sequence representations of the one or more first contexts (e.g., a training context including stored messages 1002A-C shown in FIG. 10)) included in the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., each set of candidate predicted responses r included in a plurality of sets of candidate predicted response set 1010). In some embodiments, predicted response evaluator 860 can use formula (7) below for making such similarity determination.

$\begin{matrix} {{\Gamma_{q}\left( {c,r} \right)} = {\underset{j}{\max\;\Gamma_{q}}\left( {a_{j},r} \right)}} & (7) \end{matrix}$ In formula (7), Γ_(q)(c, r) denotes a maximum value of similarity between sequence representations of a first context c and sequence representations of each individual candidate predicted response in a set of candidate predicted responses. In some examples, a first context c can be associated with a plurality of observed responses a. For example, a first context c may include stored message 1002C (e.g., “How was it?”), which may have a plurality of associated observed responses a (e.g., “Awesome,” “Awful,” “Fine”). Therefore, in some examples, Γ_(q)(c, r) can be determined with respect to the multiple associated observed responses a. Accordingly, in formula (7), Γ_(q)(c, r) is determined based on the maximum value of the similarities (denoted as Γ_(q)(a_(j), r) between each observed response a_(j) and an individual candidate predicted response in a set of candidate predicted responses. In Γ_(q)(a_(j), r), j is a number that is smaller than or equals the number of individual observed responses a that are associated with first context c. In some examples, using formula (7), predicted response evaluator 860 can determine the most relevant individual candidate predicted response (e.g., most relevant individual candidate predicted response 1220, also denoted as “(x)” in FIG. 12) associated with first context c. In some examples, the similarities are determined within every sub-space (e.g., sub-spaces 1210 and 1250, denoted as “(q)” and “(q′)” respectively), which are formed based on classification categories.

With reference to FIGS. 8 and 12, in some embodiments, based on the similarities among the sequence representations of the one or more context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user. In some embodiments, such determination is performed during an inference phase, where the second contexts 1004 (also denoted as second contexts “{tilde over (c)}” is taking into account. For example, within each sub-space (e.g., sub-spaces 1210 or 1250, denoted as “(q)” and “(q′)” respectively), predicted response evaluator 860 can determining similarities among the sequence representation of the at least one of the one or more second contexts (e.g., currently received messages 802C shown in FIG. 10) and the sequence representations of one or more first contexts (e.g., stored messages 1002A-C shown in FIG. 10). In some examples, predicted response evaluator 860 can make such similarity determination using formula (8) below. Γ_(q)({tilde over (c)},c _(k))=S _({tilde over (c)}) ^(T) ·S _(c) _(k)   (8)

In formula (8), Γ_(q)({tilde over (c)}, c_(k)) denotes the similarity between a second context “{tilde over (c)}” and each of the first contexts c_(k), where k is a number that is less than or equals the number of first contexts c (e.g., the number of stored messages 802 in a training context). In formula (8), S_({tilde over (c)}) ^(T) denotes a transposition of the sequence representation of a second context {tilde over (c)}; and S_(c) _(k) denotes a sequence representation of a first context c_(k).

In some embodiments, based on the similarities among the sequence representation of the at least one of the one or more second contexts {tilde over (c)} and the sequence representations of one or more first contexts c, predicted response evaluator 860 can identify a most similar first context 1214 (also denoted as “(c)” or “c_(l)”), which is most similar to the at least one of the one or more second contexts {tilde over (c)}. For example, predicted response evaluator 860 can make such identification based on formula (9) below.

$\begin{matrix} {c_{l} = {\arg\underset{k}{\mspace{11mu}\max}\mspace{14mu}{\Gamma_{q}\left( {\overset{\sim}{c},c_{k}} \right)}}} & (9) \end{matrix}$

In formula (9), c_(l) denotes the first context that is most similar to the at least one of the one or more second contexts {tilde over (c)}; and Γ_(q)({tilde over (c)}, c_(k)) is determined using formula (8) described above. As shown in FIG. 10, with respect to a plurality of second contexts 1004 (e.g., one or more currently received messages 802A-C), a most similar first context 1214 (e.g., denoted as “(c)” or “c_(l)”) can correspond to stored message 1002C (e.g., “How was it”). As shown in FIGS. 10 and 12, a thick dotted line (e.g., line 1238) can have a short distance and thus indicate a sequence representation of a particular first context (e.g., most similar first context 1214) that is close in proximity to a sequence representation of a particular second context (e.g., a second context 1212 that includes currently received messages 802C).

In some embodiments, based on the identified first context that is most similar to the at least one of the one or more second contexts and based on the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, predicted response evaluator 860 can determine the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user. As described above, using formula (7), predicted response evaluator 860 can determine similarities among the sequence representations of the one or more first contexts (e.g., a training context including stored messages 1002A-C shown in FIG. 10)) and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., each set of candidate predicted responses r included in the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses 1010B). Thus, based on the identified first context (e.g., stored message 1002C such as “How was it?”) that is most similar to at least one of the one or more second contexts (e.g., currently received messages 802C “Really, how was it?”), predicted response evaluator 860 can rank each set r of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses based on the similarity determination made using formula (7).

With references to FIGS. 8 and 13, in some embodiments, predicted response generator 880 can provide the determined set of predicted responses 882 to the user. FIG. 13 illustrates a user interface 1300 for providing a determined set of predicted response to the user, according to various examples. For example, on user interface 1300, predicted response generator 880 can cause the determined set of predicted responses to be visually provided to the user. As illustrated in FIG. 13, the plurality of predicted responses in a determined set can be displayed as predicted responses 1302, 1304, and 1306 (e.g., corresponding to “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}” respectively). A user can thus select one of the predicted responses by using one or more fingers 302. In some embodiments, predicted response generator 880 can cause the determined set of predicted responses to be audibly provided to the user. For example, it can cause the electronic device 900 to provide a speech output of the determined set of predicted responses and then receive a user selection using a speech input.

5. Process for Providing a Contextually Appropriate Set of Predicted Responses

FIGS. 14A-C illustrates process 1400 for operating a digital assistant to provide a contextually appropriate set of predicted responses to the user, according to various examples. Process 1400 is performed, for example, using one or more electronic devices implementing a digital assistant. In some examples, process 1400 is performed using a client-server system (e.g., system 100), and the blocks of process 1400 are divided up in any manner between the server (e.g., DA server 106) and a client device. In other examples, the blocks of process 1400 are divided up between the server and multiple client devices (e.g., a mobile phone and a smart watch). Thus, while portions of process 1400 are described herein as being performed by particular devices of a client-server system, it will be appreciated that process 1400 is not so limited. In other examples, process 1400 is performed using only a client device (e.g., user device 104) or only multiple client devices. In process 1400, some blocks are, optionally, combined, the order of some blocks is, optionally, changed, and some blocks are, optionally, omitted. In some examples, additional steps may be performed in combination with the process 1400.

With reference to FIG. 14A, at block 1402, one or more messages including unstructured natural language information are received. In some examples, the one or more messages include at least one of one or more text messages (e.g., messages 1002A-C shown in FIG. 10), one or more email messages, or one or more voice messages.

At block 1404, the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages is analyzed. To analyze the unstructured natural language information, at block 1406, unstructured natural language text is obtained. For example, if the unstructured natural language information includes one or more voice messages, a speech-to-text conversion is performed to obtain unstructured natural language texts (e.g., token sequences).

At block 1408, according to semantics, syntax, and/or punctuation marks associated with the unstructured natural language texts, token sequences are determined. For example, using natural language processing techniques, it may be determined that the unstructured natural language texts include generic statements between two users and no response or task performance is likely required. As another example, it may be determined the unstructured natural language texts include a punctuation mark “?”, indicating that the user is likely asking a question. In some examples, a punctuation mark is not required for determination of whether the user is likely asking a question. A question asked by a user may or may not require providing one or more predicted responses to the question and/or performing a task. To determine whether one or more predicted responses should be provided, the results of the analysis of the unstructured natural language texts can be further evaluated.

At block 1410, it is determined, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided. To make such determination, at block 1412, the one or more messages are classified based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information. As described above, messages can be classified into one or more categories as illustrated in FIG. 9B. In some examples, the classification can be performed using rule-based techniques and/or machine learning based techniques.

At block 1414, in accordance with the classification of the one or more messages, it is determined whether the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories. For example, as described above, one or more messages may be classified into categories of generic statements and/or generic queries (e.g., category 942A as shown in FIG. 9B), which likely do not require providing predicted responses. Messages may also be classified into a query category (e.g., category 942C), which likely requires evaluation responses. In some examples, the one or more query categories are associated with a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. For example, with respect to a message such as “How was it?”, one set of candidate predicted responses can be “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}”; another set of candidate predicted responses can be “{Good/Bad/OK}”; and yet another set of candidate predicted responses can be “{Most excellent/Miserable/All right}.”

At block 1416, in accordance with a determination that the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories, it is determined that one or more predicted responses are to be provided. For example, based on the determination that the classification of a message such as “How was it?” corresponds to a query category (e.g., category 942C shown in FIG. 9B), it can be determined that predicted responses should be provided to the user.

With reference to FIG. 14B, at block 1418, in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, it is determined, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information. In some examples, the context information includes one or more first contexts and one or more observed responses. As shown in FIG. 10, the first contexts may include a plurality of stored messages (e.g., messages 1002A-C); and the observed responses may include previously message 1003. The stored messages may include at least one query corresponding to one or more query categories. For example, a query “How was it?” corresponds to a category of query that may have evaluation responses (e.g., “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}”). In some examples, the one or more observed responses include at least one response to the at least one query. For example, an observed response to the query “How was it?” may include “Totally awesome dude!!”.

In some examples, the context information includes second contexts that include at least one of the received messages. For example, as shown in FIG. 10, the second contexts may include messages 802A-C. In some examples, each set of candidate predicted responses includes a plurality of responses having different polarities. A polarity refers to classification of sentiment in unstructured natural language information (e.g., “{Awesome/Awful/Fine}” or “{Yes/No/Maybe}”).

At block 1420, to determine the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information, it is determined similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. The context information includes one or more first contexts and one or more observed responses.

At block 1422, to determine similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, a sequence representation space is obtained. An exemplary sequence representation space 1200 is depicted in FIG. 12, and described above. In some examples, the sequence representation space includes one or more sequence representations of the context information and a plurality of sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.

At block 1424, to obtain the sequence representation space, it is generated one or more sequence representations (e.g., vectors) of at least one of: first contexts, one or more observed responses, second contexts, and the plurality of sets of predicted responses. As described above, sequence representation generation can be performed based on a neural network, such as an LSTM network. FIGS. 11A-11B illustrates a network 1100 that can be implemented to obtain the sequence representations of the context information and the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. Network 1100 is described in detail above, and thus not repeated described here.

At block 1426, it is determined correlations among at least a part of the sequence representations within the sequence representation space. As shown in FIG. 12 and described in detail above, correlations among sequence representations are illustrated using lines and associated distances between two sequence representations. A distance (also referred to as proximity) associated with a line in the sequence representation space can indicate the similarity between the two sequence representations (e.g., vectors) associated with the line.

At block 1428, it is determined, based on the determined correlations, similarities among the sequence representations of the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. As described above, at block 1430, it can be determined the similarities among the sequence representations of one or more observed responses (e.g., observed response 1003 shown in FIG. 10)) included in the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., one or more individual candidate predicted responses included in candidate predicted response set 1010B). At block 1432, it can also be determined the similarities among the sequence representations of the one or more first contexts (e.g., a training context including stored messages 1002A-C shown in FIG. 10) included in the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses (e.g., each set of candidate predicted responses r included in a plurality of sets of candidate predicted response set 1010).

With reference to FIG. 14C, at block 1434, it is determined the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.

At block 1436, to determine the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user, it is determined similarities among the sequence representation of the at least one of the one or more second contexts (e.g., currently received messages 802A-C shown in FIG. 10) and the sequence representations of one or more first contexts (e.g., a training context including stored messages 1002A-C shown in FIG. 10).

At block 1438, it is identified, based on the similarities among the sequence representation of the at least one of the one or more second contexts and the sequence representations of one or more first contexts, a first context that is most similar to the at least one of the one or more second contexts.

At block 1440, it is determined the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the identified first context that is most similar to the at least one of the one or more second contexts and based on the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. The determination of the one set of predicted responses can be performed according to one or more formulas as described above in detail, and thus is not repeatedly described here.

At block 1442, the determined set of one or more predicted responses is provided to the user. At block 1444, it is caused the determined set of predicted responses to be visually provided to the user. For example, the determined set of predicted responses can be displayed on a user interface to the user. At block 1446, it is caused the determined set of predicted responses to be audibly provided to the user. For example, a speech output of the determined set of predicted responses can be provided to the user and then a user selection using a speech input can be received.

The operations described above with reference to FIGS. 14A-C are optionally implemented by components depicted in FIGS. 1-4, 6A-B, and 7A-C. For example, the operations of process 1400 may be implemented by digital assistant system 700. It would be clear to a person having ordinary skill in the art how other processes are implemented based on the components depicted in FIGS. 1-4, 6A-B, and 7A-C.

In accordance with some implementations, a computer-readable storage medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer readable storage medium) is provided, the computer-readable storage medium storing one or more programs for execution by one or more processors of an electronic device, the one or more programs including instructions for performing any of the methods or processes described herein.

In accordance with some implementations, an electronic device (e.g., a portable electronic device) is provided that comprises means for performing any of the methods or processes described herein.

In accordance with some implementations, an electronic device (e.g., a portable electronic device) is provided that comprises a processing unit configured to perform any of the methods or processes described herein.

In accordance with some implementations, an electronic device (e.g., a portable electronic device) is provided that comprises one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs for execution by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for performing any of the methods or processes described herein.

The foregoing description, for purpose of explanation, has been described with reference to specific embodiments. However, the illustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in view of the above teachings. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the techniques and their practical applications. Others skilled in the art are thereby enabled to best utilize the techniques and various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.

Although the disclosure and examples have been fully described with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be noted that various changes and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications are to be understood as being included within the scope of the disclosure and examples as defined by the claims.

As described above, one aspect of the present technology is the gathering and use of data available from various sources (e.g., context information) to improve the delivery to users of predicted responses to messages or any other content that may be of interest to them. The present disclosure contemplates that in some instances, this gathered data may include personal information data that uniquely identifies or can be used to contact or locate a specific person. Such personal information data can include demographic data, location-based data, telephone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, or any other identifying information.

The present disclosure recognizes that the use of such personal information data, in the present technology, can be used to the benefit of users. For example, the personal information data can be used to deliver targeted content that is of greater interest to the user. Accordingly, use of such personal information data enables calculated control of the delivered content. Further, other uses for personal information data that benefit the user are also contemplated by the present disclosure.

The present disclosure further contemplates that the entities responsible for the collection, analysis, disclosure, transfer, storage, or other use of such personal information data will comply with well-established privacy policies and/or privacy practices. In particular, such entities should implement and consistently use privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmental requirements for maintaining personal information data private and secure. For example, personal information from users should be collected for legitimate and reasonable uses of the entity and not shared or sold outside of those legitimate uses. Further, such collection should occur only after receiving the informed consent of the users. Additionally, such entities would take any needed steps for safeguarding and securing access to such personal information data and ensuring that others with access to the personal information data adhere to their privacy policies and procedures. Further, such entities can subject themselves to evaluation by third parties to certify their adherence to widely accepted privacy policies and practices.

Despite the foregoing, the present disclosure also contemplates embodiments in which users selectively block the use of, or access to, personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplates that hardware and/or software elements can be provided to prevent or block access to such personal information data. For example, in the case of advertisement delivery services, the present technology can be configured to allow users to select to “opt in” or “opt out” of participation in the collection of personal information data during registration for services. In another example, users can select not to provide location information for targeted content delivery services. In yet another example, users can select to not provide precise location information, but permit the transfer of location zone information.

Therefore, although the present disclosure broadly covers use of personal information data to implement one or more various disclosed embodiments, the present disclosure also contemplates that the various embodiments can also be implemented without the need for accessing such personal information data. That is, the various embodiments of the present technology are not rendered inoperable due to the lack of all or a portion of such personal information data. For example, content can be selected and delivered to users by inferring preferences based on non-personal information data or a bare minimum amount of personal information, such as the content being requested by the device associated with a user, other non-personal information available to the content delivery services, or publically available information. 

What is claimed is:
 1. An electronic device, comprising: one or more processors; memory; and one or more programs stored in memory, the one or more programs including instructions for: receiving one or more messages comprising unstructured natural language information; analyzing the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages; determining, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided; in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determining, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information; and providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.
 2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the one or more messages comprise at least one of one or more text messages, one or more email messages, or one or more voice messages.
 3. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein analyzing the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages comprises: obtaining unstructured natural language texts; and determining one or more token sequences according to one or more of semantics, syntax, and punctuation marks associated with the unstructured natural language texts.
 4. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein determining whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided comprises: classifying the one or more messages based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information; in accordance with the classification of the one or more messages, determining whether the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories, the one or more query categories being associated with the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses; and in accordance with a determination that the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories, determining that one or more predicted responses are to be provided.
 5. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the context information includes one or more first contexts and one or more observed responses, wherein the one or more first contexts comprise a plurality of stored messages.
 6. The electronic device of claim 5, wherein the plurality of stored messages comprise: at least one query corresponding to one or more query categories; and wherein the one or more observed responses comprise at least one response to the at least one query.
 7. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the context information includes second contexts comprising at least one of the received one or more messages.
 8. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein each set of candidate predicted responses comprises a plurality of responses having different polarities.
 9. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein determining, from the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the context information comprises: determining similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, wherein the context information comprises one or more first contexts and one or more observed responses; and determining the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.
 10. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein determining similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses comprises: obtaining a sequence representation space, wherein the sequence representation space includes one or more sequence representations of the context information and a plurality of sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses; determining correlations among at least a part of the sequence representations within the sequence representation space; and determining, based on the determined correlations, similarities among the sequence representations of the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.
 11. The electronic device of claim 10, wherein obtaining the sequence representation space comprises generating one or more sequence representations of at least one of: first contexts; one or more observed responses; second contexts; and the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.
 12. The electronic device of claim 10, wherein determining similarities among the sequence representations of the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses comprises: determining similarities among the sequence representations of one or more observed responses included in the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses; and determining similarities among the sequence representations of one or more first contexts included in the context information and the sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.
 13. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein determining the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the similarities among the one or more sequence representations of the context information and the one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses comprises: determining similarities among the sequence representation of the at least one of the one or more second contexts and the sequence representations of one or more first contexts, wherein the second contexts include the one or more received messages; identifying, based on the similarities among the sequence representation of the at least one of the one or more second contexts and the sequence representations of one or more first contexts, a first context that is most similar to the at least one of the one or more second contexts; and determining the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the identified first context that is most similar to the at least one of the one or more second contexts and based on the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.
 14. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user comprises causing the determined set of predicted responses to be visually provided to the user.
 15. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user comprises causing the determined set of predicted responses to be audibly provided to the user.
 16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to: receive one or more messages comprising unstructured natural language information; analyze the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages; determine, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided; in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determine, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information; and provide the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.
 17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein determining whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided comprises: classifying the one or more messages based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information; in accordance with the classification of the one or more messages, determining whether the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories, the one or more query categories being associated with the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses; and in accordance with a determination that the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories, determining that one or more predicted responses are to be provided.
 18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein determining, from the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the context information comprises: determining similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, wherein the context information comprises one or more first contexts and one or more observed responses; and determining the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses.
 19. A method for providing a set of predicted responses to a user, comprising: at one or more electronic devices with one or more processors and memory; receiving one or more messages comprising unstructured natural language information; analyzing the unstructured natural language information of the one or more messages; determining, based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information, whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided; in accordance with a determination that one or more predicted responses are to be provided, determining, from a plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on context information; and providing the determined set of one or more predicted responses to the user.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein determining whether one or more predicted responses are to be provided comprises: classifying the one or more messages based on the analysis of the unstructured natural language information; in accordance with the classification of the one or more messages, determining whether the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories, the one or more query categories being associated with the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses; and in accordance with a determination that the classification of the one or more messages corresponds to one or more query categories, determining that one or more predicted responses are to be provided.
 21. The method of claim 19, wherein determining, from the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the context information comprises: determining similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses, wherein the context information comprises one or more first contexts and one or more observed responses; and determining the one set of predicted responses to be provided to the user based on the similarities among one or more sequence representations of the context information and one or more sequence representations of the plurality of sets of candidate predicted responses. 